At the sign of the Happy Helg
by Salchat
Summary: The Happy Helg is a welcoming hostelry with good food and drink and (more or less) comfortable accommodation, so when John, Rodney, Teyla and Ronon are stuck there waiting for a trading contact, they are content to spend some time relaxing and meeting the locals. It only remains to be seen, of course, whether the team seek out trouble or if trouble comes to them... Or both...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story was going to be a short one! For my 'Die Hard' story, I'd had to write lots of quick changes of scene and POV so I wanted to write a little something where I could really sink into the characters and settings. I thought it would be nice to let John and the team relax for a few days and see what they did and who they met, but then, well, they just can't keep out of trouble, can they? I hope you enjoy the results!**

**Chapter 1**

Rodney sneezed. Then he sneezed again. He felt around underneath his rain poncho, trying to locate the pocket where he'd stowed his handkerchiefs, then impatiently pushed the slippery fabric up over one shoulder so that he could see his tac vest. It fell down again.

"Dammit! What's the point of this thing?"

"It's supposed to keep the rain off," said John, holding out one of his own handkerchiefs.

"Is that clean?"

"Yeah, it's clean!"

Rodney took it and blew his nose loudly, then shoved it up his sleeve where he realised several others were lurking.

"Why aren't any of you wearing your rain gear?" asked Rodney, peering out from under his hood.

Ronon, a little way ahead down the muddy track, stopped and turned round. He shrugged. "Don't mind the rain."

John waggled his P90, his wet hair hanging down and dripping on his face. "I don't want to get tangled up in one of those things. I'd rather be wet than shot."

Teyla smiled agreement. "Shall we continue?"

They carried on: Ronon on point, Teyla covering their six, John and Rodney in between. The woodland path was rough, muddy and strewn with fallen leaves; red and gold and orange. Rodney was oblivious to the mellow beauty of the colours. He kept his head down under the dripping peak of his hood and watched his boots plod rhythmically on the wet ground, one and then the other and so on, _ad nauseam, ad tedium, ad infinitum. _He was miserable and he didn't care who knew it. "Just a little sniffle," had said Carson, blithely clearing him for the mission. "Nothing to worry about!" _Little sniffle, my drowning derriere. _Rodney's nose was blocked so that he had to breathe through his mouth and his head was aching.

"Rodney."

And one of his boots was definitely leaking.

"McKay!"

Another pair of boots loomed into Rodney's limited field of vision. He looked up. Sheppard.

"We're here."

"Where's here?"

John stepped aside and gestured. Through the driving rain, Rodney could see a long, low building with exposed timbers, and dormer windows in a weathered-looking thatched roof. A wooden sign swung in the blustery wind, the script it displayed unintelligible to Rodney, the picture, some kind of bloated animal with too many teeth.

"What's it say?" asked John.

"It reads, 'The Happy Helg'," said Teyla.

John squinted at the picture. "Looks like a pig."

"Good eating," commented Ronon.

Rodney had gradually straightened up. He put back his hood. His eyes widened and his chapped lips twitched in a glimmer of a smile.

"It looks like an old English village pub!" Rodney, who had attended symposiums at both Cambridge and Oxford University, considered himself something of an expert on such old-fashioned hostelries. In fact, he had probably learned at least as much about the various local brews as he had about physics and math during his sojourns in England.

John looked at the building, doubtfully. "D'you think the beer'll be warm?" he said, with drawling distaste.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Not warm! Room temperature," he said, as if he were instructing a particularly obtuse lab assistant on the correct handling of dangerous materials. "If it's too cold you can't taste the subtle balance of malt and hops and, anyway, does this place look like it has refrigeration?"

"Cold, warm, it's all the same to me," remarked Ronon neutrally. "I'm going in."

"Ronon!" He froze at Teyla's sharp exclamation, hand on his blaster. The three men's eyes followed Teyla's pointing finger. To one side of the door, at ground level, was a long strip of metal, supported at either end by uprights. On the wall behind it was some lettering, and an arrow, pointing at the implement. Next to that was a crudely painted smiley face and next to that, for those who chose to ignore the smiley face, was a cartoon of an angry Wraith.

"It's a boot scraper," said Teyla. "See?" She began scraping the mud off her boots. Rodney joined her, keen to get out of the rain.

oOo

The heavy, black-painted door was opened by an old-fashioned latch with a thumb plate, which clicked loudly as Teyla raised it. She was immediately confronted by a wood-panelled wall, with a similarly latched door to either side.

"Is this a pub or a maze?" asked John.

Teyla unlatched the door on the left and went in. The room was a fair size, but gave the impression of intimacy and simple comfort. Teyla looked up to see, not that far above her head, sturdy, exposed beams. The floor was of bare boards and the walls a plain whitewash, but what drew Teyla's eye was the brightly blazing fire in the large fireplace on the opposite wall. There was a cushioned settle to either side of the fire and various other tables and chairs scattered about. Parallel to the back wall was a bar area, the solid wooden slab which topped the bar, dark and smooth with age and use. Behind the bar was a low table on which rested four tapped barrels, and, mounted on the wall above them, was a huge gun which looked like it could reasonably be expected to bring down a Superwraith. Above that was a high shelf supporting various intriguingly shaped and coloured bottles. Teyla did not think the contents were medicinal.

She closed her eyes. She breathed in a unique combination of woodsmoke and spilt beer, old timbers, humanity and possibly cabbage. It was a welcoming smell. Teyla opened her eyes to see Rodney standing before the fire, alternately warming his hands and then his back as if trying to toast himself on both sides. Ronon sprawled in one of the settles, deliberately stretching his legs out, presumably in the juvenile hope that Rodney would trip over them. John had approached the bar.

oOo

When John entered the room, he first noticed the welcome heat and then the exits: a door behind the bar, probably leading to a kitchen and rear entrance, and also a door in the wall next to the bar, John guessed leading to another public room. _And there must be stairs in between the two,_ he thought. He also noticed a solitary man, standing leaning on the counter. The man hadn't turned round when they came in, and as John approached and stood alongside him, he gave just the smallest nod of acknowledgement.

He was old, his face brown and lined from a life spent outdoors, his mouth turned down at the corners, his eyes deepset and inscrutable. One hand was crooked round a pewter tankard, the other held a pipe to his mouth. The pipe was unlit. He wore a flat cap and a drab jacket and pants over a dirty, collarless shirt. John followed his unblinking gaze, which appeared fixed on the beer barrels.

"Hi there," said John with his best unthreatening expression. "We've just come through the Gate."

The man turned his head slightly and mouthed the pipe stem.

"We're interested in trading," John continued. The man's fingers took a tighter hold on his tankard. The pipe moved away from his lips. He took a sip of his drink. Was this the prelude to conversation? He set the tankard down and remained silent. _Apparently not,_ thought John.

"Is the landlord around?" John enquired, without much hope of a response. The pipe moved once more. John could feel his eyebrows rise in anticipation.

"'Appen 'e 'is." The pipe went back in. The man nodded sharply once, as if fully satisfied with his loquaciousness. John rolled his eyes, the saying, 'like getting blood from a stone,' springing to mind.

oOo

Rodney had dumped his pack by the door, shed his poncho and draped it over the back of one of the settles. As he gratefully warmed himself in front of the fire he peered at the painting over the fireplace. Had this really been an old-fashioned English country pub, Rodney would have expected the walls to be adorned with various hunting prints, maybe some horse brasses mounted on strips of dark leather, perhaps even a collection of offensively garish china ornaments, and, at first glance, the illusion of Englishness, or at least Earthliness, was maintained.

However, the hunting scenes depicted not hunting pink, hounds and foxes or stags, but plainly-dressed men and women mounted on what looked curiously like large pigs, similar to the animal on the inn sign, pursuing very large, frighteningly clawed beasts. Rodney moved away from the fire to study another painting. In this scene, the clawed beast was at bay, standing on its hind legs, having clearly killed one or more of the pig-mounts. Rodney turned away with a shudder, hoping that the creature in the scenes was either mythical or extinct. The horse brasses hanging from hooks to either side of the fireplace were a magpie's assortment of what could only be described as 'shiny things' of various provenances. Rodney spotted a Genii military badge, a brooch that might have been Manarian and something which looked suspiciously like a digital watch face of Earth manufacture, mounted together on a strip of leather. He shivered, feeling cold away from the fire, and moved back to his place on the hearth, kicking Ronon's legs out of the way irritably. He could feel another sneeze building and his throat was scratchy.

oOo

The landlord finally emerged, a stocky, aproned figure with thinning, dark hair, wiping his hands on a towel, his eyes quickly taking in the presence of the four strangers. John tried for a disarming smile, realising that he and his team were the subjects of a rapid threat assessment, and probably a cost-benefit analysis. He felt Teyla at his side and knew her pleasant, open expression would do much to counter the fact that they both carried their P90s in obvious readiness.

"Welcome to the Happy Helg! You're new here, aren't you?"

"Yes," replied Teyla, not mentioning a fleeting visit to this world by Ronon when still running from the Wraith. "My name is Teyla Emmagan, this is Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard, Ronon Dex and Dr McKay."

"Tamfar Holden," said the man, coming round the end of the bar to shake hands. "Proprietor of this establishment! Everyone calls me Tam."

John shook Tam's hand, surprised; not that many societies in Pegasus seemed to shake hands Earth-style.

"You're here to trade?"

"That's the plan," replied John.

"All our trading is handled by Betrich Colsen. He's the head of the farming co-operative." Tam scratched his nose, thoughtfully. "He'll be along at some point."

"Today?" asked John.

"Maybe. Or tomorrow. Possibly the next day."

"Can we go find him?"

"You're best to wait here. He spends a lot of time visiting the farms and they're widely scattered. Less of a target like that, see? For the Wraith, that is." The landlord looked slightly uncomfortable. "Of course, we've nothing against traders striking deals with individual farmers, you understand, but, well... we've had a few groups head off into the forest and not return, recently."

John turned to Teyla. "We agreed three days, initially, with Dr Weir," she said.

"And the Gate's only five klicks or so," agreed John, nodding. "Okay, we can wait," he said to Tam.

"Ah," said the landlord, rubbing his hands together. "You'll be needing rooms, then?" John imagined cartoon dollar signs pinging into the man's eyes and he wondered if the story of vanishing traders was strictly true.

"And food!" called Rodney.

"Beer," added Ronon.

"Of course," said Tam. "How about I show you your rooms first? I'm guessing you might want to change into some dry clothes. And while you're doing that, I'll sort out some food... and beers all round?"

"Perhaps some tea?" asked Teyla.

"Tea for the lady, of course!" said Tam.

oOo

"No bathrooms!" exclaimed Rodney, with disgust. "Are these people living in the Stone Age?"

"C'mon, McKay, at least we're not camping," said John, trying to extract dry clothes from his pack.

"McKay!" Ronon pulled a floral chamber pot from beneath his bed and waved it at Rodney.

"Oh, that's just wonderful," said Rodney, sarcastically. "We have a combined bedroom and bathroom!" He sniffed loudly and then sneezed several times in quick succession. "My immunity is already compromised. I'll probably get typhoid or cholera or something!"

John and Ronon ignored him. John's tac vest was soaking wet and he turned a rickety wooden chair around and draped it over the back to dry in front of the fire. The fireplace was only small, but so was the room, and its sloping ceiling made it even smaller so that it was warming up quite quickly. John thought the dormer window was cute, with its little window seat. Rodney had refused to sleep next to it, claiming that he could feel an icy draught coming through the edge of the frame, so John had taken that bed, Rodney the one in the middle and Ronon the bed nearest the door, the only area of the room with a full-height ceiling.

Rodney hopped up and down on one leg, trying to peel off a wet sock, and elbowed John in the back.

"There's barely any room to move," he grumbled. "There shouldn't even be three beds in here. I'm sure it must contravene multiple fire regulations!"

Ronon, changed already, left the room. John, unwilling to be Rodney's sole audience, tried to hurry up, peeling off his wet t-shirt and looking round for somewhere to hang it to dry. He spread it out over the footboard of his bed, then put on his long-sleeved top, forgetting to unzip it enough to get his head through and getting stuck. He heard a suppressed snort of laughter and, releasing the zipper, emerged to find Rodney, a hand over his mouth, eyes crinkled in amusement.

"If that's what it takes, McKay, next time you're being grumpy, I'll tie knots in Ronon's pant legs!"

"Really?"

"No."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Teyla sat in the parlour, sipping her tea. She wasn't sure what a parlour was, or why this room, in layout the mirror-image of the room the other side of the stairs, was referred to as such, but the landlord, Tam, had told her that their drinks were set out in the parlour and had ushered her in. There was another roaring fire and a similar bar, and the furniture was almost identical. This room, however, was entirely panelled in dark brown wood, shining with a patina of age. It was carpeted; a rich, dark red, that would hide a multitude of stains, Teyla thought. There were floral cushions scattered here and there and the mantelpiece hosted a collection of pottery ornaments: helgs, in a variety of unlikely poses, some wearing bonnets. Having experienced many different cultures, Teyla suspected this room was intended to appeal to the female clientele. She wondered, if she'd been brought up in this culture, would she have become the kind of woman who preferred pottery animals in bonnets to stick-fighting? _It would be fascinating to meet such a woman_, Teyla decided, with her characteristic openness to the mores of alien cultures.

The other difference in the room was a door to the right of the bar area, which, Teyla found, let out onto a winter-bare kitchen garden with just a few tall stalks of leafy green vegetable, standing sentinel in the rain. There was also a roughly-paved path leading to a small wooden outhouse. The structure looked draughty, damp and cold and Teyla swiftly discarded all the potential arguments she might put forward to convince Rodney that there were any advantages to such an arrangement. She hoped, sincerely, that the food would be good.

oOo

There was bread and cheese and some kind of fruit (not citrus). There were slices of cured, boiled meat; helg, Rodney assumed and thought that, judging by the meat's similarity to ham, it was conceivable that there would be bacon in his very near future. There were also some very sharp, pickled vegetables of various unidentifiable types. Rodney had tried one, but had been discouraged by the involuntary contortions his face had undergone at the extreme acidity, followed by several thunderous sneezes. Ronon was crunching the pickles loudly, his features entirely impassive. Teyla had had a little of everything and was staring meditatively at the flames. John must have eaten something, Rodney supposed, but was now restlessly prowling about, opening doors, as if the escape routes might have changed within the last five minutes.

There was a rattle from the front door and then the latch of the parlour door twitched once or twice. A thud made the whole door shake, the latch lifted and a very small girl entered. _She must have had to jump for the latch, _thought Rodney, wondering why she was out on her own. The little girl wore a frilly cap, which might once have been white. The cap had slipped low over her forehead and ragged hair stuck out from underneath. She had a woolen shawl, criss-crossed over her chest to tie at the back, and a roughly woven dress which looked too long for her. Wooden clogs peeped out from beneath the skirt and punctuated her progress as she stomped across to the bar, giving the team a cursory, but bright-eyed glance, as if saving them up for later. In one hand she held a wooden pail with a cover. Over her shoulder were slung two bundles of fur, which looked like they had recently been scurrying about, living their furry lives.

With an impressive over-arm swing, the child brought the animals thumping down onto the bar. She scrambled up onto a high stool, setting the pail down next to the furry bodies and, kneeling up, began to yell for the landlord, with astonishing volume for her size.

Tam appeared and smiled at his customer. "Here for your Dad's ale, Maddy?" he asked genially. "What've you got for me today?"

"Two furrens," she said. "Good'uns!"

"I can see that! When're you going to tell me where you set your traps?"

She giggled. "Never, Tam! I knows all the best places and I ain't tellin' you! And Dad said," (Maddy took a deep breath), "'Tell Tam not to give me any o' that helg piss he sent last time, cos I need better'n that if I'm going to put up with you bunch o' brats!'" She grinned, pleased with her recollection of her respected parent's dictum.

"Right you are, then, Maddy," said Tam, nodding sagely as he turned to fill the pail from a barrel.

Maddy squirmed round on the stool and, seeing Rodney watching, stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes. Then she giggled and Rodney realised that Ronon was making the same face back.

"There you go, young lady and I hope your Dad thinks better of it than the last lot!"

Maddy poked the furrens and leant forward, encouragingly. "Them's good'uns, Tam!"

The landlord sighed, reached beneath the counter, and brought out a large jar. He removed the lid and Maddy put her hand in and plucked out an egg; the sharp tang of vinegar reached Rodney's nose.

"Thanks, Tam," said Maddy, scrambling down off the stool. Tam handed her the pail. Maddy wandered toward the door, openly staring at the team. She stopped and set down the pail, scrutinising them. She bit the top off her pickled egg and chewed slowly.

"You traders?" she asked, through her egg.

"We are," Teyla responded and introduced herself and her team-mates.

"I'm Madena, but you can call me Maddy. Why is your hair like that?" she asked, looking at Ronon curiously.

Ronon reached up and drew a knife from his hair and waggled it. "That's one reason," he said.

Maddy grinned cheekily, popped the remaining piece of egg in her mouth, tugged off her cap and revealed that she had a small pen-knife hidden inside.

"You have a sharp knife!" exclaimed Rodney. "How old are you?"

"O' course it's sharp," replied Maddy scornfully, ignoring his question. "Wouldn't be any use if it weren't, would it?" She picked up the pail. "Got to go now. Dad'll be ready for his ale."

They watched her clump sturdily out of the door, which slammed behind her and was then echoed by the outer door.

"Don't they have any schools round here?" said Rodney, irritably.

"She seemed pretty well educated, to me," said Ronon.

"In killing small creatures, yes, I'm sure!" said Rodney. "She must have been, what, six, seven Earth years?"

"Perhaps this society places value on different things, Rodney," said Teyla, calmly. "They are primarily farmers."

Rodney huffed disapprovingly and began finishing off the remaining scraps of meat and cheese. Children were a law unto themselves. He thought about his sister who had given up the academic world to have a child. A girl. Actually, wasn't her name Madison? Rodney shuddered at the thought of a Maddy in the family, all dead animals and knives.

oOo

Ronon sipped his tankard of ale and wondered if he'd ever have children. If he had a daughter, he would want her to be just like Maddy. A girl who knew where all the best places were to lay traps and always had a sharp knife to hand. He wondered if Maddy could shoot and track. Maybe she'd be interested in learning some fighting moves. This could be fun.

oOo

John felt restless; and cold, when he wasn't standing right next to the fire. He'd put on a thick fleece over his long-sleeved shirt but felt like he could do with another layer. The beer had been nice; light and bitter and refreshing and John realised he had found it soothing on his throat which was feeling a bit sore. He'd probably caught Rodney's cold. He leant down to look out of the small front window, the deep embrasure showing the thickness of the building's walls. It was steamed up and he rubbed the condensation away from one of the small, diamond-shaped panes. Still raining; and he needed the bathroom. He'd make a quick dash for it and then warm up again in front of the fire.

By the back door, John noticed a tatty piece of oilskin hanging from a hook. Guessing it was for the use of patrons, he twitched it off the hook and held it over his head while he slipped out of the door into the wet garden. The paving was green with moss in places and John stepped carefully to avoid the slippery patches. The rain pattered against the oilskin and he shivered. Although he was cold, he stopped and stood for a moment, peering out from under his makeshift umbrella, surveying the sparse vegetable beds and the clumps of evergreen herbs. Over a low stone wall, the land sloped upward in a brief jumble of low-growing scrub, before meeting the woodland. John didn't get any particular feeling about the place; the rough area before the trees gave a reasonable view of anything or anyone approaching. The doors of the pub were all sturdy with substantial bolts, top and bottom, and the few ground floor windows all had wooden shutters on the inside. It was a defensible position, against most things; except Wraith, obviously.

John continued down the path and pulled open the outhouse door by its rope handle. Typical of such facilities, there was merely a wide wooden plank with a round hole cut into it. Less typically, in one corner was a triangular shelf on which sat a jug of water, a small basin to pour the water into and even a bar of soap and a towel. Of course, once the door was shut, there was very little light so that John had to grope to find the hook on the door for the oilskin, and then kick the door open slightly every so often to give brief flashes of daylight, in which he could see what he was doing. As he was leaving he noticed another small shelf which held a candle. _Bring matches, next time_, he told himself.

Hurrying back up the path, eager to return to the fireside, John had a sudden, intense feeling that he was under hostile scrutiny. His hand found his Para .45 and he spun around, bringing the weapon up into firing position and flinging down the oilskin. His eyes scanned the treeline above the muzzle of his gun. He could see nothing. He stayed, motionless, watching, knowing he was exposed but unable to detect any concrete threat. The unsettling feeling slowly dissipated and he crouched down and snatched up the oilskin, keeping his weapon out and his eyes on the woodland. He retreated until he reached the safety of the door, opened it and slipped inside.

oOo

"I think you're supposed to put that over your head," said Rodney, seeing John dragging the oilskin in through the door. Then he noticed John's tense movements, his sidearm in his hand and his stern 'game face'.

"What's up?" Ronon asked, alert as usual to any change in atmosphere.

"Maybe nothing," John replied, hanging up the oilskin. He wiped the condensation away from the tiny back window and stood, looking out. Rodney looked at Teyla.

"I sense nothing," she said.

John holstered his weapon and turned away from the window, running one hand through his damp hair. "I didn't see anything," he said. "Just, stay alert, okay? Make sure you have a weapon if you go outside." He sat down close to the fire and held out his hands, rubbing them together.

"Still raining?" asked Rodney. John nodded and shrugged, in a way that meant he thought the weather was fixed for the long haul. Rodney leant back in his chair, glad he wasn't out in the wet. He felt comfortable; replete with good food and drink, warm and actually a little drowsy. He still had a slight headache and felt lethargic, but lethargy was no problem when all he had to do was relax in front of a fire; nothing to fix, no life-or-death last minute save to pull off. He sighed and allowed his eyelids to droop.

There came a scratching at the door that led to the stairs. It stopped and then started again with renewed vigour.

"Sounds like an animal," said Ronon.

"But is it the kind of friendly animal that we should let in," said Rodney, sitting up straight and tucking up his legs nervously, "or something with teeth, claws and murderous intentions that you should shoot?"

Ronon strolled lazily to the door and opened it just a crack. A fluffy animal slid sinuously into the room through the narrow gap. It was about the size of a German Shepherd, but more cat-like in its movements and bearing. Its ears were rounded and its face broad and flat, its feet splayed out into short, but defined toes and its tail was bushy, like a fox's brush, but more suggestive of its mood. At the moment the tail was at half-mast and the animal was twitching just the very tip of its mottled brown and black length.

"Hey, kitty...-type thing," said Rodney hesitantly, holding out his hand.

The animal totally ignored him and stalked past to sit, with statuesque importance, blocking Rodney completely from the heat of the fire. It lifted up a front paw and began to clean between its spread toes with apparently great concentration. Rodney grinned. It might not be a cat, but it certainly had what, strictly within the confines of his own thoughts, he liked to call 'catitude'; the studied indifference, the monopolising of the heat - these were definite statements of intent, as far as Rodney was concerned. He began to feign similar disinterest, striking up a conversation with Teyla about animals on her home planet. Ronon muttered something about the other bar and disappeared through the door. John had lain down along the length of the settle, one knee bent up, foot on the seat, the other stretched out toward the fire, his arms behind his head. He appeared to be asleep, but Rodney was almost sure he would be on his feet, weapon drawn, in less than a second if he felt the need.

A questioning _brrrrp _interrupted his conversation. This would require careful judgement. What Rodney desperately wanted to do, and considering his years of catlessness it wasn't surprising, was to scoop up the animal and bury his face in its fur. If he proceeded with this course of action, he was almost certain he would, literally and metaphorically, 'lose face'. He glanced down. A pair of large yellow eyes glared back. Rodney reached out casually and allowed the creature to sniff his fingers. It seemed to find his scent acceptable and gave another interrogative _brrrrp. _Rodney wondered whether it would try to jump into his lap; his lap wasn't really big enough for such a large cat-substitute, and if it began to knead him into conformity with its strong paws, it would almost certainly cause significant damage. Rodney moved up the settle, closer to Teyla, who was watching the proceedings with interest. He patted the surface of the bench beside him. The creature, deciding he was sufficiently well-trained to urge it to take the seat closest to the fire, leapt up and, circling precariously on the narrow bench, arranged itself into a satisfactory curl. It lifted its head and glared again, expectantly. Rodney began stroking the soft fur, his fingers sinking deeply into its rich, dense underlayers. The animal growled contentedly. So did Rodney.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Ronon stood at the bar beside the silent man. He matched the man's pose, hand crooked around his tankard, which he'd just had refilled with a dark, malty brew. Ronon wondered what the taciturn man was thinking about. He hadn't spoken to Tam and he had only taken one sip of his drink in the time Ronon had been standing next to him. Perhaps he nursed the same pint all day. It was remotely possible that he sought companionship in his silence: maybe he'd simply forgotten how to be sociable. Ronon knew what that was like; his seven years as a runner had not given him much scope for normal, light-hearted conversation.

"The name's Ronon," he offered.

The man's gaze didn't alter. Ronon was surprised he hadn't bored a hole in the wall by now, so fixed and apparently unblinking was his stare. The pipe, still unlit, made its way to one corner of his mouth.

"Gard," he said.

Ronon could have asked: "Name or occupation?" Instead, he made a rumble of general acknowledgement, a response that had served him well on any number of occasions, and took his tankard over to the fire.

The flames were faltering, so he added a few logs. He stared into the glowing depths, appreciating the near-scorching heat on his face and the relative cool on his back. His eyes wandered around the room. He studied the hunting scenes: the figures riding the helgs and the beast they were pursuing. It all looked a bit haphazard. They weren't making the most of their numbers and the strength of their mounts. The paintings made Ronon want to be out there, in the forest, astride a powerful helg, the ground thundering past and his quarry in sight.

He spotted another picture, in the corner opposite the front entrance. It was an abstract, composed of many different shapes delineated by fine threads of wire. Ronon ran his fingers over the surface; there were small, narrow slits distributed unevenly between the patches of colour. This was no piece of art.

Tam called across the room. "It's a knife board. D'you want to try?" He reached beneath the bar and brought out a flat wooden box, carried it over to where Ronon stood and set it down on the nearest table. He opened the hinged lid and inside, Ronon could see two rows of six knives, one set with black handles, the other with white. He picked one up and felt the coolness of the smooth hilt, its weight comfortable in his hand.

"Have you played before?" Tam asked.

"No," said Ronon, which was perfectly true; he'd never played this game with his knives.

"Well, the smallest shapes are the ones that'll get you the highest points... and that's basically it," said Tam, smiling. "See, there's a line on the floor you have to stand behind. And then you throw like this." He held the blade delicately between his finger and thumb and then, with a quick flick of his wrist, sent it spinning, end-over-end, to hit the board with a gentle thud. "That was a blue, so that's twenty," said Tam. "You try."

Ronon stood behind the line, facing the board. The knife in his hand had a keen edge and was well-balanced. He knew he could use it to hit anything from a gnat's eye upward, at this range. He threw. The knife hit the board and then clattered to the floor.

"Good try," said Tam. "Give it a bit more of a flick and a bit more force... like this." He demonstrated, hitting another blue.

Ronon took up his position again, behind the line, glared intently at the board and gave a savage, jerking throw. The knife hit one of the largest shapes and buried itself up to the hilt.

"Maybe a bit less force next time," advised Tam. "I'd better get back." He jerked his head toward the kitchen. "You keep practicing!" He disappeared behind the bar.

Ronon pulled the knives out of the board. He took all twelve in his left hand and, transferring them one after the other to his right, with a rapid flick, flick, flick, sent them flying true, to embed themselves, two in each of the six tiny red triangles. Ronon nodded in satisfaction, a small, mischievous smile playing on his lips. He plucked the knives out and placed them carefully back in the box.

oOo

"You've made friends with the priss, then."

John, who had been dozing, was brought fully awake by the landlord's voice. On the opposite settle, Rodney appeared to have been engulfed in mottled black and brown fur.

"Is that her name?" asked Rodney.

"No!" said Tam. "That's just what animal it is. I don't think anyone's named this one. They live wild in the forest, but they're well known for wandering into homes and taking over. That one's a right nasty piece of work!"

John watched as Rodney's relaxed features transformed into the expression he wore when ripping into a colleague with razor-sharp sarcasm: the raised, slightly tilted head, the subtle sneer of suddenly thinned lips, the eyes flashing with contempt.

"What's on the menu this evening, Tam?" asked John, shooting Rodney a quelling glare.

"Helg stew and dumplings!" replied the landlord promptly. Rodney looked only slightly mollified by this news. "There'll be company and probably entertainment in the other room later. I could serve dinner in there, if you've a fancy to join the locals?"

"That'd be very nice, thank you," said John, showing Rodney how the whole 'be-nice-to-natives' thing was done.

"Right you are, then. It'll be an hour or so."

When Tam had gone, Rodney vented his feelings in a flurry of invective, interspersed with croonings to the priss, which had sprawled herself along the length of the settle, covering him like a large, fluffy blanket.

"I'm going to call you Boudicca," said Rodney, running his hand along the whole length of the animal, from her nose to the tip of her tail.

"Boudicca?" queried John.

"Queen of the Iceni. One of the few Ancient Britons to fight back against the Romans." Boudicca rolled over and splayed all four legs in the air and Rodney enthusiastically began stroking her tummy. "She was really brutal, wasn't she?" he said to the priss. "Did she murder all the imbecilic, uneducated Roman landlords? Yes, I think she did!"

"Where's Teyla?" asked John.

"She went to look for somewhere to exercise," replied Rodney, absently, still focussed on his new friend. "I think there are some stables or something."

John looked at his watch. "Atlantis'll be dialling us up soon. I'm gonna go upstairs to take the call."

It was cold in the bedroom. The fire had died down and John felt a sharp draught coming from the window; Rodney had been right about that. John was about to build up the fire, but then his radio chirped and crackled so, instead, he untucked the blankets from his bed and sat with them draped over him like a tent.

John replied to Chuck's voice and then Elizabeth spoke.

"John, how's it going?"

"Slowly. The locals are friendly enough, but the guy we need to talk to is away. Could be a coupla days."

"Do you think they'll trade with us?"

"Oh, yeah, I think so! They breed these giant pig-things. I'm pretty sure they'll be able to supply us."

"That sounds very positive, John! But, don't forget the practicalities, will you? We don't want the Gateroom over-run by animals!"

"Ha, yeah," replied John, recalling Sergeant Stackhouse's recent mistake, which resulted in a flock of large, but surprisingly aerodynamic turkey-like birds taking up residence in the roof space of the Gateroom. In the end they'd had to use Wraith stunners to bring them down, but for a while the Gateroom had been a hazardous space to traverse without an umbrella.

"Freezer-ready, John, or you'll be doing the clean-up!"

John chuckled. "Freezer-ready," he agreed.

Elizabeth signed off, having agreed their next check-in. John sat under the blankets, wondering what to do. He wasn't used to having downtime; even when they weren't on a mission, there was always paperwork to be busily avoided. Rodney had found a friend, Ronon had disappeared and Teyla... John threw the blankets aside, checked his tac vest (still damp) and set off to find the stables.

oOo

Teyla had made her way through the kitchen garden, her eyes on the treeline, alert for any danger. She had followed a path around the kitchens, hearing the sounds of vigorous chopping and a lusty female voice upraised in a mildly suggestive song.

On the far side was a small, square yard. The stable block stood at right angles to the kitchens and the other two sides were bounded by a stout wooden fence. It was still drizzling lightly and the surface of the yard was slick with mud. Teyla trod carefully across and entered the stable. She was pleased to see that there was an open area that would provide her with some space to exercise. There was a ladder leading to, she guessed, a hayloft and two wide box stalls. One stall was occupied. Teyla could hear the rustle of straw and some deep, stertorous breathing. She approached and looked over the half door. This, presumably, was a helg.

It was an animal of the woodland, designed to thrive on the debris of the forest floor; fallen fruit, nuts, mushrooms, insects and very possibly rotting carcasses. It had the broad, flat snout typical of such animals, including the Earth pigs that Teyla had seen pictures of. The snout looked strong enough to burrow down into the dirt to find roots and worms and, in fact, the barrel-shaped body had no discernible neck and it probably couldn't look up very far even if it wanted to. Teyla wasn't sure how big pigs grew, but this creature was enormous; more than half Ronon's height and all of his length. It had very mobile ears which had pricked up straight when Teyla approached and were swivelling here and there as she stood watching. Teyla was pretty sure pigs didn't have such large, mobile ears; this animal must have to be alert for predators. But what predator would take on such a powerful animal?

Teyla cautiously held out her hand and spoke softly to the creature. It gave an astonishingly deep, resonant grunt, its ears swivelled here and there independently, and its snout twitched. Then it returned to rooting in the straw and began crunching loudly on something it found there.

Teyla turned away and began some loosening up exercises, stretching her muscles, the familiar movements bringing her mind's attention onto her body. She focussed completely on her routine, the slow in-and-out of her breath co-ordinating perfectly with her movements. She worked without judgement, simply noticing how her body felt, feeling any slight areas of tension and stiffness which often drained away once they'd been calmly acknowledged. After a while Teyla was ready for something else. She hadn't brought her bantos sticks, but, in her experience, there was almost always a reasonable substitute to be found, whether for training or actual combat purposes.

She surveyed a collection of tools, neatly supported on wooden pegs fixed to the wall. There were several that it would be amusing and challenging to try. She picked up a garden rake and imagined it was her only weapon against an enemy, thrusting it forward and then bringing it swinging round as if using the tines to puncture and tear. She then brought the handle sharply backward, pretending there was someone creeping up on her. Satisfied, Teyla returned the rake to its place. The rain drummed harder on the barn roof, in a continuous roar. She picked up a scythe, studying the curved blade carefully. It was well-maintained and obviously sharp. She adjusted her grip, trying one hand in various places to find the balance-point and then using two hands wide apart on the wooden handle and sweeping the blade in a figure eight before her. It would take practice but would be an effective weapon. She adjusted her grip again, holding the handle near the blade and pulling it swiftly backward at the imaginary assailant behind her.

There was a pained, "Oof!" and Teyla spun round to find John doubled over, clutching his ribs.

oOo

It had begun to rain heavily again and John had hurried through the garden, round the kitchen and across the yard, head down, the old oilskin pulled around him. He hadn't seen Teyla and she, evidently had not heard him.

"John!"

"Hey, Teyla," he wheezed.

"I am sorry, I did not realise..."

"S'okay," he said, waving a hand and straightening up slowly. "I'm okay, everything's okay!" He couldn't suppress a wince as he pulled himself up straight, which belied his statement, but he smiled nevertheless. "Nice weapon," he commented.

"It is very effective if handled correctly," she said.

"Yeah, I can vouch for that!" he agreed, rubbing his bruised ribs.

A loud grunt sounded from the occupied box stall. John looked over the door and beheld a huge mass of dark brown, wiry-looking hair.

"Whoa, that is one huge pig!"

"I believe it is a helg," said Teyla.

"I guess so!" he said, impressed. We won't need many of those to keep us in bacon!"

The helg grunted and shoved at the door with its snout.

"Hey, you hungry?" John searched his BDU pockets and found a stray power bar.

"John, that might not be good for it!" said Teyla, but John had already unwrapped the bar and held it out on his flat palm as if he were feeding a horse. The helg's snout twitched, it snuffled sloppily at John's hand and the bar was gone, accompanied by appreciative grunting. John reached over and patted its back. The hair was coarse, but softer and thicker than it looked. The creature rocked back and forth encouragingly and John obligingly scratched it.

"This must be its riding harness," said Teyla, pointing to a strangely shaped saddle and bridle mounted on the wall. John grinned. "I've got to have a go at riding one of these things!"

"You ride animals on Earth."

"Horses, yeah. And I've ridden a camel." Teyla looked blank. "I'll show you a picture sometime."

"I have seen pictures of horses. They are not at all similar to helgs."

"Ha, no, you're right there! But maybe they think the same way." John regarded the helg, pensively. It looked strong and its legs were longer than a pig's. Maybe it would be fast; John intended to find out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The evening began with helg stew and dumplings, followed by some kind of fruit pie. Rodney fed scraps of his meal to Boudicca, who lay beneath the table; in fact, she took up so much space that the four team-mates had to sit skewed sideways.

"Tastes like plums," said John, taking another spoonful of pie.

Rodney shook his head and swallowed his mouthful. "More like peach. Although my tastebuds are a bit off at the moment."

"It is reminiscent of the fruit of the hadler tree, do you not think, Ronon?" said Teyla.

"Dunno," said Ronon succinctly. "Tastes good."

"Taciturn Man's gone," observed Rodney.

"Gard," said Ronon. "I think that's his name."

"He spoke to you?" asked John, amazed.

"Just told me his name," Ronon said.

The room was quiet, just two men sitting at a table and another standing at the bar. The latch clicked and a fourth man entered, nodded at the pair at the table, who nodded back, crossed to the bar and nodded at the other man, who waggled his tankard and grunted a vague interrogative. Rodney watched, fascinated, feeling like an anthropologist studying primitive behaviour. The tankard-waggler rapped sharply on the bar, and when Tam appeared, gestured with his pint, jerking his head toward the new arrival. Tam dutifully refilled his tankard and another for his friend.

"It seems to me," commented Rodney, "that the standard of conversation on this planet leaves much to be desired."

"Oh, I don't know," said John, who had also been watching. "It's kinda like a universal language."

"What, the universal 'man in a drinking establishment' language?" said Rodney, scornfully.

"Yeah," said John. "You take those two," he nodded toward the men, "you beam them to any bar in this galaxy or the Milky Way and they'd fit right in."

"You couldn't communicate like that!" said Rodney.

"Yeah, I could."

"You wouldn't get far establishing diplomatic relations with just a grunt and a..." Rodney made a vague gesture with his tankard, sloshing some of his ale onto the table. John took a large gulp of his beer, then wiped the froth off his upper lip with the back of his hand.

"Watch me!" he said.

He strolled over to the bar and took up a casual, leaning stance next to the two men. He paused, sipped from his tankard and then nodded and smiled a greeting to the man next to him. The man nodded back and then John also exchanged non-verbal greetings with the other man. Rodney noticed John's smiles inclined to the manly grimace end of the smile spectrum, a kind of 'we're all in this together, let's make the best of it' face. _So far, so Neanderthal, _thought Rodney. _But how's he going to progress this conversation?_

John took a deep draft of his ale and exhaled with a deeply satisfied, "Aaaah!" His companions responded with broad grins and approving rumbles.

"It's official," said Rodney. "Sheppard's a cave man."

"I'm trying it," said Ronon.

He lounged up to the bar, loomed until he had everyone's attention and then casually jerked his head in the direction of the knife board, one eyebrow raised. The two strangers looked at each other and came to a silent consensus of expressive eyebrows and 'why not?' shrugs. Ronon reached behind the bar and withdrew the case of knives and the group moved over to the board.

"They fit right in here," Rodney said to Teyla, a note of envy in his voice.

"You are welcome here too, Rodney," said Teyla, reassuringly.

"Oh, yes, well, I mean it's not as if I want to be able to converse with your average yokel, particularly," said Rodney, dismissively. "They just make it look so easy. They know how to... I suppose mirror other people's behaviour so that they're accepted. Well Sheppard does, at least. Ronon just has to loom."

"You are right, to an extent," Teyla conceded. "But you know very well that mirroring or being accepted are not always what is needed. Sometimes verbal conflict and challenge are the best routes to a truth or a solution, and you are not afraid of either."

Rodney preened a little, sitting up straighter, his mouth forming a characteristic crooked smile.

More customers began to arrive, men and women in a variety of groups. Some had brought musical instruments with them and soon there was a lively mix of music, conversation and alternate cheers and groans coming from the direction of the knife board. Boudicca made a hasty departure, hissing and snarling so that the crowd rapidly gave her a clear path.

"I don't think she likes crowds," said Rodney. "She's not bad-tempered, really!"

"She is a wild animal, Rodney. She probably needs to hunt," said Teyla.

Another cheer came from the direction of the knife board. It seemed Ronon had attracted attention and bets were being placed. The musicians struck up a lively tune and some people began to sing along, the words concerning a helg farmer's daughter and becoming increasingly lewd. Another group were discussing helgs and the likelihood of ever producing a line to rival that of 'Big Berran' and his progeny.

_"Oh, the helg farmer's daughter, she slept in the woods!"_

"You'll never see his like again, right enough!"

"You old timers always say, 'The old helgen were the best!' But I've got some proper good'uns raising at the moment and so has Fren here!"

A groan came from the knife-throwing and the local champion shook Ronon's hand, ruefully. Money changed hands.

_"So follow her, follow her, into the woods!"_

"I think I might go up," said Rodney, rubbing his forehead.

"Are you well, Rodney?" enquired Teyla.

"I have a headache," he said. "My sinuses always make my head feel like it's about to burst when I have a cold."

"You should make sure you have a good night's sleep, then," said Teyla.

"Hmm... I think I'll take some Tylenol. What will you do?"

Teyla gave a small smirk, a mischievous expression that would have been more at home on John's face. "I have noticed that there are no women playing at knife-throwing," she said. "It seems that the women in this society are not expected to excel at such things."

"Maddy probably would," said Rodney, pushing his chair back and getting up. "So what are you going to do?"

"Challenge their preconceptions," said Teyla.

"Have fun with that," said Rodney, yawning.

"I believe I will!"

As Rodney climbed the stairs he heard another rowdy chorus of 'The helg farmer's daughter' strike up and wondered how he would ever get to sleep. The bedroom was lit only by flickering firelight and Rodney began to undress, trying and failing to find places to stow his clothes neatly. He balanced them in a heap on top of his pack, then sat down on the bed. Someone patted him on the shoulder, making him jump, swear, leap up and spin round all at once. The sprawled bundle of bedding sat up, revealing itself to be Boudicca.

"Oh, it's you!" said Rodney, his hand on his chest, feeling his wildly beating heart. The yellow eyes were wide and accusing. "What? What've I done?"

Boudicca padded her front paws up and down on the bed.

"Yes, it's my bed. And?"

She continued to pad. "Oh, wait, was I supposed to follow you before? What, am I your kitten now? Or whatever your babies are called?" He huffed irritably. Boudicca uttered a plaintive _brrrrup_ and rubbed her head against his chest.

"Yes, I have a headache and yes, I do want to go to bed and yes, you can stay. But let's be quite clear! I'm allowing you to stay, not the other way round." Rodney stared into the golden depths of the alien eyes. "Oh, who am I trying to kid," he said.

oOo

After Teyla had joined the knife-throwing, John drifted to the back of the group, content to watch his teammates from a distance. Teyla was surrounded by an admiring crowd, having shown almost as much prowess with the knives as Ronon. Ronon had been challenged to a drinking game which involved knives and a line of very small glasses filled with an evil-looking bright yellow liquid. The idea seemed to be to drain one of the small glasses then quickly fling a knife with the idea of hitting one of the smallest targets on the board. So far, Ronon's performance was flawless and John didn't give much for the other guy's chances.

John's eyes felt heavy and his throat was burning painfully; he sidled out inconspicuously. Reaching the bedroom, he squinted into the red firelight. Was there someone in bed with Rodney? It would be very unlike him to have hooked up with a local and brought her back to the room. John moved closer and then grinned. Rodney had indeed hooked up with a local and brought her back: Boudicca, her long fluffy body lying alongside Rodney, his arm flung across her, buried deeply in the richness of her fur.

oOo

It was still dark and the fire had gone out, leaving the air in the bedroom frigid. Neither darkness nor cold nor a late-night drinking strong spirits were a deterrent to Ronon, however; he could feel the day beginning and it seemed wrong to lie in bed and let it begin without him. He got up and flung on his clothes as quickly as he could. The priss, lying crossways on top of Rodney opened one eye and flicked an ear, then settled back to sleep. Ronon crossed the room to shake his team leader's leg. A muffled grunt came from beneath the blankets.

"Going out. You coming?"

An indecisive noise was followed by movement. Sheppard sat up, his hair sticking out in all directions. He opened his mouth, croaked, cleared his throat, and then rasped: "You sure it's morning?"

"Yeah. You okay?"

"Hmm... yeah. Throat's a bit sore."

"McKay gave you his cold? Stay here, then." Ronon departed, before John could force himself out of bed.

The sound of clattering pans came from the kitchen and the doors were already unlocked. Ronon slipped out and across the garden, used the outhouse and then approached the shadowy woodland. The sun had not yet risen and it was very dark. Ronon stood, letting his eyes and senses adjust. He felt the chill air bring up goosebumps on his skin and sear down into his lungs. He heard the drops of still-falling rain filter down between branches and the few remaining leaves and land on the softness of the year's residue. He smelt the sickly-sweet scent of rotting vegetation and the stronger, musky odour of an animal that had passed quite recently. Ronon skirted the eaves of the forest, noting small tracks crossing his path. The ground undulated gently as he walked. Ronon heard birds begin to call, heralding the new day. He felt the land and the air and the stirring of wakeful creatures call to him; he wanted to run and run, far and fast and free, running just for himself and not from fear and dread, forced onward by an unrelenting pursuit.

He resisted the call and knelt down, feeling the trail at his feet, seeing, as the light rose, subtle disturbances in the dirt and leafmold and dew. Someone had passed this way. Someone had followed the trail with small, sure-footed steps, their feet clad in smooth, wooden clogs. Ronon followed the trail, deliberately kicking at the debris of the forest floor, giving his quarry a warning of his approach.

Maddy was squatting next to a tangle of briars.

"You're noisy! Like a helg!" she said, by way of greeting.

Ronon didn't respond. He regarded the forest floor, noting the disturbed surface and scattered clumps of bloody fur. Maddy sighed, sniffed dolefully and stood up.

"Something got here before you?" asked Ronon.

She nodded. "Got 'em all. All my furrens. And not eaten them even! Just..." She flapped a hand at the scattered body parts, unfazed by the carnage.

Ronon crouched down and scrutinised the ground carefully.

"Something big," he said. "Heavy." His eyes flicked to the scarred trunk of a nearby tree. "Claws," he commented.

"A grenza," she said, her voice not quite as unafraid as she pretended.

"You get many round here?"

"No. They come from the mountains. When it's hard and cold up there. Not every year." She stuck her hands in her skirt pockets and toed the leafmold with one clog. "Have to tell Dad," she said gloomily. "'N' then he won't let me go trappin' no more." She turned and headed back down the trail. Ronon followed.

"They kill people?" he asked.

"They kill everything!" she replied. "Furrens, helgen, people. There'll be a hunt," she said thoughtfully. "The farmers'll want it dead or it'll go for the helgen. Do you like hunting?"

"Better than being hunted."

Maddy silently digested this statement.

"Dad'll let me go on the hunt. Mam'll kick up like anything, but I'll go! I'll take Pinky and Dad'll ride old Snorter."

Ronon raised an eyebrow in question.

"Our riding helgen! You ever ride a helg?"

Ronon shook his head.

"They're fast and strong. Plough through anything, they will. Only you have to choose the right ones," she said knowledgeably. "Not too fat, or you'd not get your legs round. Not mean, or you'd get bit. And not too clever, cos then they've got ideas of their own and that don't usually include being rid."

"You know a lot about helgs."

"Helgen," she corrected. "Course I do! I grown up with 'em, ain't I?"

"Sounds like fun. Hunting. Riding helgs... helgen."

"It is. We only got two for riding, but someone'll lend you one. 'N' then you can come too. Bet you fall off, though."

"I'll get back on."

Maddy grinned, but seeing that they had nearly reached the pub, her face fell.

"Pity about the furren," she said sadly.

"No beer today," said Ronon.

"Oh, well," said Maddy, blithely dismissing her father's needs. "He shouldn't've drunk it all at once."

"I'll buy you a pickled egg," offered Ronon.

"Um... thanks..." She hesitated. "I do like pickled eggs, but... it's a cold day, ain't it?"

Ronon looked at her blankly. Maddy rolled her eyes as if he were being very slow.

"Something hot'd be good, like maybe... palver?"

"Don't know what that is."

"You never had palver?" she said scornfully. "Well, it's ale with stuff in. Herbs or something? And you have it hot!"

"Ale? Aren't you too young?"

"Course I'm not!" she said, affronted. "I ain't a baby!"

Ronon shrugged. "Palver it is, then."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

John was woken again by someone clearing out and rebuilding the fire. Through bleary eyes he watched her work until she had the fire blazing brightly. She wiped around the hearth with a damp cloth, stacked a few more logs to one side and then, her work done, looked up and noticed John watching her.

"Morning, Sir!" she murmured. "There's hot water in the jug over there." John noticed the tiny wash-stand in the corner of the room with a rose-adorned jug and a matching basin next to it.

"Thanks," he said.

The maid left. John raised himself on one elbow; Ronon was long gone and Rodney had been abandoned by his bed-mate. John's throat was aching and he wasn't looking forward to getting up, even with the fire lit. But when the maid had left the room, the scent of cooking breakfast had drifted in through the door and John's stomach gave a peremptory order.

He pulled one of his blankets off the bed completely and shuffled over to the washstand with it draped over him like a cloak. He poured some of the rapidly-cooling water into the basin and had a very cursory wash beneath the blanket. John dismissed the idea of a shave and then flung on his short-sleeved t-shirt, now dry, the long-sleeved one and the fleece. His tac vest appeared to be dry too, at last, and John thought about putting it on just for an extra layer, but decided against it. He wondered how it could still be so cold with all the fires they kept lit in this place, but then realised houses must have always been this way before central heating, insulation and double glazing.

He clumped down the steep, uneven stairs and turned right at the bottom, guessing that breakfast would be served in the parlour. A woman was remaking the fire but she turned when John entered and, wiping her hands on her apron, came toward him, and vigorously shook him by the hand.

"Lillaina Holden," she said, "but everyone calls me Lil." She was a tiny woman, not nearly up to the height of John's shoulder, even with the bun on top of her head, from which curls of hair were springing free. She had a friendly, round face and her cheeks were red and shiny, presumably from spending most of her time in a hot kitchen.

"John Sheppard," he croaked. "Call me John."

"Oh!" she said, her brow furrowing in concern. "I was going to ask what you wanted for breakfast, but I know exactly the thing! Lots of sore throats and colds going round at this time of year." She ushered John over to one of the settles next to the fire, plumping up the cushions before he sat down and clucking in motherly concern. She pulled up one of the tables. "There. You can eat in front of the fire and be nice and cosy. I'll be right back."

John closed his eyes and basked in the heat. He felt like a lizard, soaking up energy from the sun. He heard the back door open and close. Teyla sat down next to him.

"Good morning, John," she smiled.

"Morning Teyla," he rasped, drawing a look of concern.

"You have caught Rodney's cold?"

John shrugged. "It's just a sore throat. I'm fine. Ronon went out early," he said, changing the subject.

"Yes, he is back now," said Teyla. Teyla told John what Ronon and Maddy had found in the forest. "She has gone to tell her father. Maddy thinks the farmers will organise a hunt."

John looked thoughtful. "It might mean this guy Colsen comes back sooner. We can get our trading contract sorted out."

"Perhaps," said Teyla calmly. "Where is Rodney?"

"Still in bed."

"No, I'm not!" said Rodney, plopping down onto the settle opposite. "What's for breakfast?" he asked, rubbing his hands together.

"You are feeling better, Rodney?" enquired Teyla.

"Oh, well, you know, obviously I should be in the infirmary, really, but I'll battle on. No snarky comments, Colonel Do-or-die?"

"John has a sore throat," said Teyla, before John could respond. "Please do not encourage him to talk, Rodney."

"That's... that's...how is that fair?" spluttered Rodney. "I had to slog through all that mud yesterday when I never should have been cleared for this mission and now he gets all the sympathy!"

John was relieved when Lil entered, carrying a large tray, which she set down on the table.

"There's your porridge," she said, setting bowls in front of John and Teyla. "I've made it extra smooth and creamy, and there's honey to add, which I can recommend as being good for colds, and there's a dish of stewed fruit. And here's some palver, that is, warm spiced ale: good for a cold morning! Now, Sir," she turned to Rodney. Would you like some porridge? Or there's still some bacon left, which you could have with a few eggs, even though your friend and that child, Maddy, did their best to eat up our entire supply!"

"Well, um... perhaps a little bit of everything might be nice," said Rodney.

"He means he'll start with a large bowl of porridge, then just keep it coming," clarified John.

"I see!" said Lil, indulgently. "Won't be long!" She bustled away.

Ronon sauntered in and John feared for his porridge for a moment, which was proving to be just as creamy and easy on his throat as Lil had promised. Ronon didn't seem interested in the food, however. He flung a chair backward up to the table and sat down on it, legs astride, draped over the back, as was his habit. He came straight to the point.

"We should track this grenza-thing."

"What? Those things in the pictures? Why?" said Rodney, incredulously. He was still unconvinced after Ronon told him what he and Maddy had found. "Tell me exactly why we need to go out into the wilderness and chase around after a great, big, clawed... thing!" He raised his arms and curled his fingers in imitation.

"We help them kill it, they'll give us a better deal," said Ronon.

"A better deal? It wouldn't be a very good deal if it kills us, would it?" Rodney protested.

Teyla looked thoughtful. "These creatures are a significant threat to the helg farmers."

"A threat that I'm sure they're very well able to cope with themselves!"

"They don't have one of these," said Ronon, pulling out his blaster and thumping it onto the table. "Or P90s. And Maddy said quite often people are killed."

Rodney spluttered and his voice rose higher. "Please explain exactly how that makes it any better, because to me that sounds like an excellent reason to have nothing to do with it!"

"Hold on, Rodney," said John, putting down his spoon in his empty bowl. "Ronon, could you track this thing?'

"Sure, easy. I reckon it must be holed up somewhere nearby, then come out to hunt at night." Ronon jerked a casual thumb in the direction of the other bar. "Some guy in there said there's already been helgs killed."

John chewed his lower lip, thinking. "We need to do anything we can to get a good deal for Atlantis," he said. "I'd like to take a look, at least."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "I don't think this is a good idea, Sheppard."

"Objection noted, McKay." John took a tentative sip of his palver. It was a strange mix of bitterness, warm spice and sweet honey. John thought he could easily get used to it. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do. Teyla, Rodney, you stay here for now, one in each bar, keep your ears open for any reported sightings of the grenza and, Teyla, if Colsen shows up you can begin negotiations. Ronon and I'll go and do a bit of scouting around, see what we can find."

To John's surprise, it was Teyla who objected, rather than Rodney.

"John, do you not think you should stay here? I am very capable of tracking with Ronon, while you are not well."

Rodney rolled his eyes and sniffed ostentatiously.

"I'm fine, Teyla. Carson cleared Rodney to come, so there's no problem!"

"Carson knew that Rodney would do his best to keep dry and warm and take no unnecessary risks in terms of spending extended periods becoming wet through in temperatures barely above freezing!"

John wondered if he was being foolish, then shook his head. "No, decision's made. I want to get a feel for what we're up against."

oOo

"Here," said Ronon, pointing at the ground. John surveyed the scene, the scraps of bloody fur, the torn carcass. "It came from over there, killed the furren and then went that way." Ronon pointed further into the forest.

"Lead on," said John.

Ronon moved off confidently, his eyes flicking here and there. Sometimes he stopped, crouched down and scrutinised a track or a bent branch or a crushed plant. Often John couldn't see what had interested Ronon or why he chose a particular path. It began to rain again and, whereas in summer the leaves would have sheltered them for a time, the drops fell quickly through the denuded branches and John felt his hair grow wet and water run down the back of his neck. He shivered.

"D'you want to go back?" Ronon had stopped and was watching him.

"No. Keep going."

Ronon shrugged and carried on. John wondered if Ronon's natural, handmade clothes had better waterproofing properties than his own; water just seemed to slide off him.

"Look," said Ronon, pointing. Through the trees they could see a high stone wall. It stretched away into the forest to either side, at right angles to their path.

"Boundary of a helg farm," said Ronon.

"I guess you need walls this big to keep them in," said John. "This isn't going to keep anything in, though. Or out."

The wall was breached; a great gap at least six feet wide, narrowing toward the base of the wall. Large rocks were scattered all around, most of them on Ronon and John's side.

"Looks like something forced its way out," said Ronon. He studied the ground. "Five, maybe six helg, heading that way." He pointed left, parallel with the wall.

"How long ago?"

Ronon touched the impressions in the muddy ground. "An hour, couple of hours?"

"Okay, mission changed," said John. "We'll track the helgs, herd them back in through this gap and then let the farmer know. That should earn us some good will."

"Sure," agreed Ronon, easily. They set off, in pursuit.

oOo

Rodney had finished his delicious breakfast and then, to add to his pleasure, a scratching had come from the kitchen garden door. He got up and let Boudicca in. Her fur looked dark and was slicked down to her sides. She didn't seem in the best of moods, growling at Rodney when he attempted to pet her. She shook herself like a dog and then sat down by the fire to lick her fur back into some semblance of order, pointedly eying the empty breakfast plates.

"Oh, yes, I suppose I should've saved you something," said Rodney, sheepishly.

Boudicca merely paused in her grooming for half a second, then resumed, feigning complete unconcern.

Rodney heard the outer door bang, and then the characteristic two false starts and a thud heralded Maddy's arrival.

"Hello, priss," she said, casually. Boudicca greeted her with a _rrowwl_, a noise Rodney hadn't heard before. "Hello, er... Can't remember your name."

"Rodney," he said. "You know Boudicca?"

She looked blank.

"The priss," he said. "I named her Boudicca."

"Oh, yes," she said, casually. "A priss had a litter in our barn one year. I played with the littl'uns and when they went into the forest I just tagged along. I met most of the local prissen."

She leant both hands on the edge of the table and jiggled her feet up and down, shaking the furniture. Rodney suppressed his irritation. Maddy looked around at the bar and then lowered her voice, conspiratorially.

"The prissen showed me where to trap," she said. "Don't tell no-one!"

"I won't," said Rodney, interested now, in spite of himself.

"They're clever, the prissen," she continued, realising she had an audience. "Cleverer'n most folks know. They leads you home if you're lost, when, well, they could eat you up, couldn't they?"

Rodney nodded agreement.

"And," she said importantly, "I think they understand quite a bit of what we say!"

"That wouldn't surprise me," said Rodney, looking into Boudicca's golden eyes.

"She's adopted you, that one," said Maddy. "You and your friends, I shouldn't wonder. She'll want you back together before long where she can keep an eye on you!"

"Well, that wouldn't be a bad thing!" said Rodney, and explained what John and Ronon had set out to do.

Maddy's brows drew down below the edge of her cap and she pressed her lips tightly together. "They didn't ought to have done that," she said worriedly.

Rodney silently agreed.

oOo

Ronon and John followed the helg tracks through the trees parallel to the wall. The tracks were clearly to be seen in the mud and, even without them, the broken branches and crushed vegetation would have given the trail away. Even so, after about ten minutes, Ronon crouched down in the mud and studied the tracks more closely.

"What's up?" asked John.

"They're being followed."

"Yeah, by us!

"And by a grenza. Maybe more than one. See this?" Ronon pointed at some deep slashes in the dirt. "They have claws on their fore and hindlegs, but this one was walking upright."

John poked his finger in the hole left by one of the claws and shuddered.

"Let's keep moving," John said. He checked his P90 again, flicked off the safety and held it ready, scanning the forest all around.

Ronon slowed and then stopped. He turned round and put his finger to his lips, then pointed. Through the trees, John could see a group of six helg, busily rooting and grunting in the earth. There was no sign of a grenza.

John pointed at Ronon and mimed that he wanted him to circle the animals and then fire his weapon. That way the helgs should run back along the line of the wall and John could fire his P90 to stop them breaking away into the forest. But he wondered where the grenza had gone. And how many there were.

Ronon slipped away and John got into position to drive the creatures when they started to run. He shivered and he realised it was not from cold. He had the same feeling of hostile scrutiny that had frozen him to the garden path the day before. Something was watching him. John turned a very slow three-sixty, weapon raised to his eye. He saw nothing but couldn't shake the feeling.

Then the alien sound of Ronon's blaster rent the still woodland air and chaos erupted. Four helgs came hurtling through the trees, crushing everything in their path, their small eyes maddened with fear. John realised he wouldn't be able to keep up with them to stop them breaking for the forest and hoped they'd have the sense to go home. Then, a huge, terrifying creature burst out of the trees, claws flashing, crocodilian jaws snapping the air, its black, sinewy body rearing high over the helgs. One swipe of an arm and the claws bit deep into the side of a fleeing animal. It went down immediately, squealing and kicking, its hot blood fountaining in steaming arcs in the frigid air. The other helgs kept on running, thundering past John in a blur of dark brown hair.

John let off a short burst from his P90 directly into the grenza's body. It turned toward him, its insect-like eyes blinking vertical lids. He fired again, and he could see black blood seeping from its wounds, but the thing kept coming. His finger tightened on the trigger, but, at a snap of a twig behind him, he spun round. Another grenza loomed out of the forest, its eyes fixed on John, its claws raised to attack.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Teyla poured herself yet another cup of tea. She had had quite enough tea for one morning, and she would by far have preferred to go out tracking grenza with Ronon than sit unoccupied for so long, alone, apart from Gard or, Taciturn Man, as Rodney called him, who had returned to his post at the bar.

The skittering of cloven feet on the muddy ground outside heralded an arrival. Somebody dismounted heavily and loud grunts and snorts indicated that the riding helg had been given something to eat while waiting for its owner. The latch raised and an anxious-looking man entered and hurried to the bar. He called for Tam and stood, twisting his hat in his hand.

"Pate Farr!" Tam greeted the man. "It's been a while since you've visited us! What'll it be?"

"Oh, I'm not here for the ale," said Pate. "That is, I will, but... Look, has he gone? Have I missed him?"

"Who're you after, Pate?" asked Tam, calmly.

"Colsen! Colsen, of course! I was supposed to meet him last night to agree the rate for my yearlings and then, well..." a smile broke out across his face, and he blushed red with pride. "Marga had the baby! Another girl!"

"Ah, that's lovely, Pate! Congratulations! Maddy said there was another cousin on the way! A pint on the house for you!" He turned to the barrels and began filling a tankard.

"Yes, I mean, thanks, but where's Colsen?"

Tam set the tankard down on the counter and shook his head. "Haven't seen him. I've got folks waiting here for him," he nodded toward Teyla. "New traders. But, we've had neither sight nor sound of the man here!"

Pate took a long draft of his ale. "Ah, that's good stuff, Tam. Just what I needed." He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a thick wad of folded parchment. "I can't afford to hang around waiting for Colsen. This here's my provisional agreement, which I'm more'n happy to go with, but if he says the yearlings at Harden's and Flet's are better'n mine, then he'll have to come back to me if he's thinking he can give me less per head."

"I can't understand what's happened to him. When was he with you?"

Pate gulped his ale. "A sennight since."

"And he was heading for Harden's place and Flet's?"

"And then some of those little set-ups, nearly in mountain country."

"Well, I hope no harm's come to him."

Pate set down his empty tankard. "You got a pen there, Tam?" The landlord drew out a quill and ink from under the counter. Pate took the quill, dipped it in the ink, thought for a moment and then laboriously scrawled onto a corner of his parchment. "There, that'll have to do. Keep this behind the bar for me, Tam?"

"Right you are, Pate, and my best wishes to the missus and the new littl'un."

"Thanks, Tam."

When Pate had gone and Tam had disappeared into the kitchen, Teyla approached the bar. She stood next to Gard and looked directly at him.

"I have often observed," she began, "that those who are silent, listen well."

Gard removed his pipe from his mouth and took a tiny sip from his tankard.

"I have also observed that, though you may be a man who has lived an outdoor life, you are not a farmer."

"How's that then, Ma'am?" he grunted.

"Your hands betray you," she said decisively. "You have not the calluses of a farmer, but those obtained from the regular use of firearms over a number of years."

"Got to keep the grenza away, Ma'am."

Teyla smiled. "Let us have no more dissembling, Mr Gard. You are a soldier, or something of that sort."

"No, Ma'am, not me."

Teyla persisted. "It is not just your hands that betray you, but the loose fit of your clothes. You have a weapon concealed beneath your left arm, another by your right hip and I am sure there are others."

"Well now, Ma'am," he said, turning to face her and looking straight into her eyes. "Mayhap you've put yourself in a tricky position, if I'm, as you say, armed and dangerous."

Teyla's voice lowered and her eyes glittered with threat. "If you think you can overcome me, Mr Gard, you are more than welcome to try."

Unexpectedly, the man laughed and his eyes softened. "Nay, lass, I'll not challenge you! I've done my research; I know about your skills with or without the sticks. Not to mention your friends from the Ancient city. I've no mind to make enemies of them!"

"Then let us have some plain speaking, Mr Gard. Who are you and why are you here?"

oOo

When Ronon had fired his blaster, it had not had quite the desired effect. Certainly four of the helgs had run, squealing away toward their home farm, but two of the fiercest-looking had headed straight for Ronon, their mad eyes full of determination to quell the threat to their family.

Ronon had never witnessed bull-fighting, but he timed his sideways leap to the split second so that the helgs' shoulders collided with each other, rather than crushing him between them and then pounding him into the ground with their mallet-like feet. Then he heard a squeal of mortal agony from the direction the four helgs had fled and the rattle of a P90; John was under attack. Ronon's two opponents had regained their balance but one barreled its way straight past Ronon toward the source of the squealing. The other put its massive, bristly head down and charged once more. Ronon holstered his blaster and stood, poised, on the balls of his feet. The beast thundered toward him and he sprang up in a gigantic leap and landed on its back; backwards, which, Ronon had to admit, wasn't ideal.

The helg twisted this way and that, trying to fling him off, taking him further into the forest, away from the wall and the other helg. Ronon gripped onto the coarse hair, one hand in front and one behind, and performed a manoeuvre that would have earned him a fair score in an Olympic pommel horse event. Now facing forward, he crouched low over the helg's neck and used his powerful leg muscles to try to steer his mount back toward John.

The helg was having none of it; it let out a furious roar, its ears flattened to its head and it charged straight for a brushwood thicket. Branches snapped in Ronon's face, thorns tore at his clothes and skin; the helg continued, oblivious, its thick hide and its rage protecting it. Ronon saw the helg was aiming for a dense patch of briars and he knew he'd be cut to pieces. He pushed down on his hands, drew his legs up and, for a second was balanced on his toes on the helg's back. Then he leapt, bent his knees on landing and rolled, over and over, his momentum carrying him thudding and bouncing over the forest floor until he hit a solid tree trunk and lay in a tangle of long limbs, his breath heaving and his head spinning.

He wanted to lie and catch his breath, but instead, Ronon pushed himself up into a sitting position against the tree, fumbled for his weapon and brought it up with a shaking hand, his vision still spinning and blurring. The forest was quiet apart from his own laboured breathing. The helg had gone.

Suddenly, Maddy's words rang in his mind: _Bet you fall off..._ And his glib, _I'll get back on. _Even though he was bruised, battered and bleeding from numerous scratches, Ronon laughed.

oOo

John fired into the second grenza and was astonished and horrified that his P90, set to automatic, didn't simply cut the thing in half. The creature swiped down with its long, black claws and the weapon was ripped from his grasp and flung down, the glint of silver showing that the claws had torn through the metal. Then there was a huge brown shape charging toward them. It knocked the first grenza over, and John saw a chance for escape. He leapt at the speeding helg, fell short, but managed to grab hold of some of its wiry hair. He was jerked off his feet and dragged along, the creature barely slowing down, squealing at the pull on its fur. John was slammed up and down, his legs trying to get purchase on the ground. He grasped another handful of hair, but couldn't swing a leg over the helg's back, the furious pace and jolting gait throwing him hard against the tough body and then flinging him out into the air. It flicked its legs up, trying to kick him off. He felt one clump of hair tear out and reached desperately for another, but the helg kicked its hind legs and jinked sideways. John lost his grip altogether and was airborne for a moment of spinning confusion, then crashed into a tangle of saplings and creepers. Branches snapped around him, and he fell down amongst the undergrowth, gasping and dazed.

The helg had gone. Vaguely, John could hear its diminishing charge through the thudding of his heart and the rasping of his laboured breathing. He realised he was wedged between several narrow trunks and that thinner ones had snapped beneath him and were digging into his tac vest. He began to ease himself out, grasping the branches to either side and pulling with trembling arms. He slowly shuffled forward until he sat on a clear patch of ground, his head on folded arms, supported by his bent knees. He began taking stock; he was certainly bruised but nothing seemed broken. A snapped branch had made a hole in his pants and scraped up the side of one thigh, but it didn't seem too bad. He should get up and find Ronon and he hoped...

John had hoped the grenza were gone, but a peculiar chittering call had him reaching for his Para .45, mercifully still clipped in its holster. A tall shape moved amongst the tree trunks, gliding silently but for its eerie cry and the slight clicking of its claws. He could run, but it would be on him in seconds. The grenza emerged from the shadows and stopped. It tilted its head to one side and regarded him, the strange vertical lids blinking consideringly. It stalked toward him, the tips of its long foreclaws tapping against each other. John let it come. Closer and closer until he could see his reflection in the green of its eyes and the ebony sheen of its claws.

He shot it in the eye. And even as it raised its claws and swiped them across his arm and chest, he shot it in the other eye, and then again and again and again, the bullets penetrating the orbit and ploughing up into its brain until it fell forward, dead. The grenza crashed down like a felled oak, the weight of its body falling on John's legs and torso, forcing the air from his lungs, great gouts of black blood dripping from its wounds and soaking the earth below.

It was dead, but he was pinned down, only able to take shallow breaths, his face pressed sideways into the dirt by the weight of the creature's crumpled body. He couldn't see his arm or chest; he knew it had hurt him, but he couldn't see how badly. Maybe the pressure of the grenza's weight was the only thing keeping him alive. No, he wouldn't think like that; John forced himself to take slow breaths, as deeply as he could. His radio crackled and he heard Rodney's voice, but he couldn't respond.

He waited, growing colder, and hoped somebody would come soon.

oOo

Boudicca had been scratching at the garden door on and off for the last ten minutes and Rodney felt like joining her. Maddy also was twitchy and kept nudging him and saying, "What'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do, Rodney?" and predicting dire consequences if John and Ronon had actually encountered a grenza. In the end, Rodney's worry overcame his inertia; he thudded up the narrow stairs to the bedroom, snatched up his radio, flung on his tac vest and grabbed Teyla's vest and P90 from her room, noting, with irritation, that it was the same size as his but with only one bed. He tried hailing John and Ronon on the radio, but received no response, adding to his anxiety.

"We're going after them," said Rodney, bursting into the bar and thrusting Teyla's tac vest and weapon at her. She took them and began putting on the vest.

"What has happened, Rodney?"

"Nothing... that is, I hope... but, Boudicca doesn't like it and neither does Maddy and neither do I!"

"What's this all about then?" asked Gard.

"Colonel Sheppard and Ronon have gone into the forest to track the grenza," said Teyla.

"On their own?" He shook his head. "Fools."

Rodney cast a confused glance at Teyla.

"Mr Gard is a bounty hunter. He has shared some interesting information."

"It's just Gard," he said. "And let's save that for later. We'd best be on the move if we're to be in time.

oOo

Ronon had decided, in his usual manner, to get straight up, find Sheppard and rescue him, if rescue were required. His plan had had to be modified, however, after his head began to pound, the world lurched and he found himself clutching the tree trunk and sliding back down to the ground. He felt around in his dreadlocked hair and found a large lump; he must have hit a stone or something when he'd jumped off the helg. He tried again, slowly, easing himself up against the tree, letting the spinning settle. He could see the path he and the helg had taken through the woods; nobody could miss it, really. Ronon took a tentative step away from the tree and then another. He felt dizzy, but if he went slowly he thought he could manage.

oOo

Boudicca bounded ahead of them through the trees, reluctantly stopping every so often to allow them to catch up and sometimes gripping Rodney's clothes in her teeth and dragging him along.

"Yes, yes, we're hurrying!" Rodney stumbled over the uneven ground, Teyla ahead of him, Gard on their six. Maddy had, under protest, stayed behind.

Teyla stopped, motionless, her P90 in firing position. Somebody stumbled out of the trees.

"Ronon! What has happened? Where is John?" Teyla held out her arm and Ronon caught it and swayed. She lowered him to the ground, where he sat, his head in his hands, Boudicca sniffing and licking and patting him with alternate paws and emitting small growls of reassurance and admonition.

"Don't know what happened to Sheppard," he said blearily. "Think he was attacked." He pointed to the trail of destruction he had been following.

"Rodney, stay with Ronon, we'll find John," said Teyla.

"No, Ma'am, I don't think so. Best stick together with grenza about."

Ronon raised his head and squinted.

"Gard's a bounty hunter," said Rodney.

"Huh!" Ronon rose to his feet with Gard's help and they continued, following the trail made by Ronon's helg, while Ronon, in disjointed, laboured sentences, explained what had happened.

They came to the clearing where the creatures had been grazing and found the dead helg a little further on. Rodney turned away, feeling sick; it had been disemboweled.

They trudged on. It was raining hard once more, the drops, beginning to freeze into sleet, stinging Rodney's face. Boudicca, her fur dark and slick against her sides, suddenly turned and fixed him with her golden eyes and then bounded away down the trail. He heard her urgent call, faintly through the bluster of wind and rain in the trees.

They emerged into a clearing. A dead grenza lay on the ground and Boudicca poked at it with her nose and paws. Rodney saw a boot protruding from beneath the corpse, and then a hand and then, crouching down he could see John's face, pale and still.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

John felt warm breath on his face and opened his eyes to see two golden orbs staring back at him. He felt someone holding his wrist and then heard Teyla's relieved voice.

"I can feel his pulse. John is alive."

"We need to get this thing off him!" Rodney was there too.

"Each grab a limb. Watch the claws!" An unfamiliar voice, and where was Ronon?

John felt the pressure on his body disappear as the grenza was lifted away over his legs, and then he could see all three of his teammates. His breathing eased, and not just because of his freedom from the beast's crushing weight. But why was the other man here? The quiet man from the bar, whose name John couldn't, for the moment, recall? And why, when they dropped the body did Ronon sink to the ground, one hand to his head?

John thought about moving, but wasn't sure if he could, and then Teyla and Rodney were there and he managed a smile and a croaky, "Thanks, guys."

oOo

John lay on the ground, pale and unmoving and Rodney was glad to see his eyes open and hear his whispered thanks. Teyla lost no time in checking his injuries and Boudicca also nudged him with her nose and patted him here and there with her paws.

"Ronon?"

"He has a concussion. He will be fine." Teyla moved aside the pieces of John's tac vest that had been slashed and he flinched as she examined the wound on his upper right arm.

"This is quite deep, but the wound on your chest is shallow. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Don't think so," he said. "Just kinda... squashed."

"Lucky," grunted Gard. "Those things can gut you in a heartbeat."

At John's puzzled look, Teyla and Rodney chorused: "Gard's a bounty hunter."

"Oh." He closed his eyes and swallowed, grimacing. The rain, that the grenza's body had at least protected him from, seemed to intensify its assault and the wind whipped away any residual warmth. Teyla took a bandage from her vest and bound his upper arm.

"There was another one!" John's eyes had flown open and he began to struggle to sit up, one hand pressed to his ribs.

"Another of those things?" asked Rodney, peering through the driving rain, over his shoulder and around at the trees.

"It'll be back," commented Gard. "But it's not around now. Look at the priss."

Boudicca was sitting close up to Rodney, looking unimpressed with the weather but otherwise the picture of unconcern.

"No sense waiting for one, though," continued Gard.

"I don't think any of us are hanging around for fun and laughs," said Rodney, with some asperity. "Let's get you up," he said to John, "before Boba Fett, here, blows his rocket."

John smirked and sniggered which was a better sign, to Rodney, that John was basically okay, than anything he might say.

oOo

Lillaina Holden had taken a bucket of scraps out to the helg, Franca, and was returning to the kitchen, her shawl held over her head. A movement drew her eye to the treeline and she saw the bedraggled party of her guests emerging from the woods, with that man, Gard, who spent most days propping up the bar, subsisting on one pint of ale. Lillaina squinted against the rain; there was the priss, too, bad-tempered thing, although, she had to admit, it seemed to get along with this group pretty well. Her eyes narrowed further; they had some injuries, unless she was much mistaken, and if she hadn't known, Lil could easily have guessed who would be most likely to suffer a mishap. _Some men just can't stay out of trouble,_ she thought, and felt grateful for Tam who, though he did occasionally sink one too many tankards, had no yen for adventure and was quite happy running their efficient establishment.

Lil beckoned to the party, who had nearly reached the kitchen garden, and they all trooped round to the yard gate. She ushered them in through the kitchen door, where they stood, dripping and shivering and telling of helgen killed or loose, and grenza in the forest. The maid, Tirren, who had been set to peeling vegetables for a stew, stopped her work and gawped until she realised Lil's sharp eye was upon her; she returned to her peeling.

The youngest man, Ronon, was leaning on Gard. He was dirty and scratched and looked dazed. The leader, John Sheppard, supported by the one who was obviously not a fighter (but could probably provide his own brand of trouble) had a bloody bandage around one arm and looked like something had stamped him into the ground. Lil indicated the two wooden armchairs by the fire and John and Ronon were deposited into them.

"Go!" she said to Rodney and Teyla. Gard had already slipped away, unobserved. "Dry clothes! Get warm! I'll take care of these two. Tirren!" Lil ordered. "Follow them up, get dry clothes. And blankets from the linen chest. And lots of towels!" she called, after Tirren's retreating form.

Lil checked the men's injuries, none of which seemed in need of immediate attention compared to the necessity of getting both men dry and warm. Lil accomplished this, with Tirren's blushing help, relatively easily with Ronon, who was still dazed. John's protests, through chattering teeth, that he could manage to undress himself, were ignored, when his numb, uncoordinated hands and constant shivering proved that he couldn't.

At last both were dry and mostly dressed after having had all their various injuries cleaned. John was still shivering occasionally, but his lips had lost their blue tinge. He sat, wearing his pants that had only just dried from the day before and three pairs of non-matching socks which Tirren had found in the linen cupboard. He also held a blanket pulled tightly round his shoulders; Lil sorted through her medical supplies.

"D'you trade with the Hoffans?"

Lil frowned at the sound of John's painfully raw voice. "The Hoffans?" she asked, vaguely.

"The med kit. It looks Hoffan."

"Oh. No, not directly. This comes from Catosia. They get medical kits from the Hoffans and trade them for helgen. The Hoffans don't want our meat."

"We can trade for medical stuff."

"I'm sure you can. I'm going to stitch your arm." She hesitated. "That is, unless you want one of your friends to do it, or send through the Gate for someone?"

"Are you any good?"

"Good at stitching? I make all our clothes!"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I am good," she reassured him. "We don't have any doctors here, so I've had plenty of practice."

"Stitch away, then."

oOo

Teyla didn't particularly mind being wet; she had grown up having to accept being more or less permanently damp, or even wet through, on hunting trips on Athos, and she was hardened to it. It was always nice to get into dry clothes, though, she thought, as she spread out the wet ones before her bedroom fire. Her radio crackled and hissed. Teyla doubted whether John would be listening out for his radio; she would respond.

"Atlantis, this is Teyla."

"Teyla." It was Elizabeth's voice. "How's it going? Anything to report?"

_Where to begin? _thought Teyla. "We have not yet made contact with this planet's trading co-ordinator. It appears that he was expected to return here but may have met with some mishap."

"Is there anyone else we can deal with?"

"Possibly. But there are other issues."

"Go on."

"There is a bounty hunter here, by the name of Gard. He has been tracking a Manarian fugitive; Councillor Smeadon."

"Smeadon?" Elizabeth's distaste came clearly over the airwaves. "The one who gave us up to the Genii? Didn't the Manarians try him for treason?"

"They did. But he escaped house arrest during the trial and has been evading justice ever since. Gard has investigated several false covers that Smeadon set up on other worlds, but he thinks he may be here."

"You want to assist this bounty hunter?"

"We have not discussed the matter yet," said Teyla evasively.

"Teyla, what's happened?"

Teyla reported the day's events. She could hear both Elizabeth's worry and her eye-rolling frustration in her responses.

"Teyla, I'm tempted to send a Jumper and pull you out of there."

"I do not believe the Colonel would favour that course of action," replied Teyla carefully, thinking that John would be livid if he were suddenly whisked home. Rodney and Ronon wouldn't be happy either.

"We do need to trade for food, Teyla, but I don't want you to get mixed up with any wild animal hunts or escaped criminals!"

"We have established friendly relations with the inhabitants and I believe they will deal fairly and reliably," reassured Teyla.

There was a pause. "I want you to find out if it's possible to deal with anyone other than Colsen, Teyla. And I want to speak to John. I'll dial you up again in three hours. Atlantis out."

oOo

"There, all done," said Lil, taping down a dressing over the long cut across John's chest. "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm good," said John, automatically, employing his usual strategy of ignoring his aches and pains in the hope that they'd just go away. Lil didn't look convinced and neither was John, if he was honest.

"I'm hungry," said Ronon, suddenly snapping back to full awareness.

"Are you sure?" asked Lil. "Most folks don't feel like eating after a knock on the head."

Ronon shrugged. "I get hurt, I eat, I feel better. That's how it works."

"Maybe some broth..." Lil suggested, doubtfully. John watched her bend down and look at Ronon's eyes, which were focussing perfectly and conveying his determination.

"Meat. And plenty of it. Please. I'll be through there." Ronon indicated the bar with a jerk of one thumb. "Oh, and... thanks, for... you know."

"You're welcome," Lil replied, placidly. She turned back to John, who had pulled the blanket back up round his shoulders. He still felt cold and Ronon's ability to bounce back so easily had made him feel envious and a bit miserable.

"You friend recovers quickly," Lil said.

"Yeah, he's like that," said John wearily.

She looked at him, searchingly. "You were putting on an act, weren't you? For his benefit."

John shrugged one shoulder slightly and pulled a face. "Ronon's quite a bit... um... younger than me."

"You feel you have to compete?"

"No!" He paused, while Lil regarded him steadily. "Maybe?"

She smiled and picked up his t-shirt; it had been folded over one of the oven door handles to warm. "You need help putting this on?"

"No! Actually, yes," he said, having reached out with his right hand without thinking and felt the stitches pull at his abused skin.

Lil scrunched up the sleeve of the t-shirt to pull it carefully over John's injured arm first, and then helped him the rest of the way into it. He shivered and she helped him put a fleece over the top.

"Are all your clothes black?"

"Uniform ones, yeah. Or grey."

"Hmm..." Lil picked up a kettle and put it on to boil. "You're not all military, though, are you?"

John shook his head and yawned. "No. Ronon was a soldier, on Sateda. Teyla's a civilian, but she can fight better than most soldiers." He coughed and cleared his throat. "Rodney's a scientist." John's voice tailed off to a hoarse whisper and he shivered again and pulled the blanket back up.

"Sorry. I shouldn't be making you talk," said Lil. She put a hand on his forehead. "You have a bit of a fever. Why did you go out there today? Don't answer that. I know why, anyway. I had a brother like you, always in trouble when we were growing up, out 'having adventures', getting himself hurt."

John finally felt warm and his eyelids began to droop. "What happened to him?"

"Went to Catosia for an adventure, met a girl, married her and had ten children. That's enough adventure for any man! Enough and to spare!"

John smirked sleepily.

"You should go to bed," Lil advised.

"Warm here."

John allowed himself to drift, as Lil moved about the kitchen. The sounds and scents of food being prepared and her occasional murmured words were soothing and distracted him from his throbbing arm and raging sore throat. He wondered if he had been foolish going out after the grenza. It crossed his mind that it had been Ronon's idea, and he smiled at his childish thought; John knew the decision and responsibility had been his, as team leader, but the thought of himself and Ronon getting into mischief together as boys was amusing. They would have stood shuffling and nudging each other, looking up, shamefaced, as Teyla sternly rebuked them. _She would be trying not to laugh, though, _he thought.

oOo

Rodney watched as Ronon licked the grease off his fingers and then chased down the meat with a lengthy gulp of ale. He then belched in a generally satisfied way, earning a look of admiration from Maddy, and sat back, his hands clasped over his full stomach, a very slight grimace as his head touched the back of the settle the only indication of his recent injury.

Rodney took another freshly-baked roll from the basket on the table in front of him, split it and inserted a slab of butter and some of the pinky-orange fruit preserve. He bit into it, enjoying the contrasting crunch of the roll's crust against the softness inside and the cool sweetness of the jelly. His nose was still blocked, which dampened his appreciation of flavours and made eating generally awkward, but Rodney was not deterred.

There was a thud and then a crow of pleasure came from Maddy, who was, alarmingly, playing with the knifeboard. Boudicca stopped grooming herself briefly and responded with an acknowledging growl. Rodney wondered, for a moment, if she would sort his hair out too; it was insisting on sticking up in a fluffy halo since he'd vigorously towel-dried it. Maybe not; she might lick it all away.

Teyla entered, followed by John, looking bleary-eyed and flushed, which, Rodney decided, was an improvement over blue-lipped and grey-faced. He had his right arm in a sling. Boudicca took a great interest in seeing that he and Teyla sat down by the fire with Ronon and Rodney. She sniffed them thoroughly and patted everyone with her paws several times, then she trotted over to Maddy to do the same, eliciting a "Geroff, silly priss!" She then returned and used her head to force a space between John and Ronon and jumped up and settled down across their laps. She looked across at Rodney and he felt her satisfaction in having all her wayward kittens safely accounted for, as well as an extra layer of smugness that the two most troublesome could not stray again. The settle creaked alarmingly under their combined weight.

"I must tell you what I have discovered about Gard," said Teyla.

"The _incognito _bounty hunter," said Rodney, picking up another roll and preparing it for Teyla.

Teyla recounted what she had learned about the Manarian Councillor and Rodney paused in his buttering, remembering his encounter with Kolya during the great storm. How many times had he thought he was going to die that night? How many times had he been afraid, not only for himself, but for John and for Elizabeth and for Atlantis herself? He met John's eyes and saw the blank hardness which spoke of horrors and guilt suppressed. And it was this man, Smeadon, who had given the Genii a way in.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Rodney carefully filled the roll with jelly and passed it to Teyla. Tam had set a tray of tea on the table as she had been speaking and Rodney poured some for Teyla and for John and for himself. Ronon shook his head when offered, as did Maddy, who kept taking sly sips of Ronon's ale when he pretended that he wasn't looking.

"Where does Gard go?" John croaked. "When he's not here?"

"Through the Gate?" Ronon suggested.

"I do not think so," said Teyla. "He returns too quickly."

"I don't trust him," said Rodney. "He's not telling us everything. I bet he has a ship hidden away somewhere."

"He spoke of using the Stargate to travel between worlds," said Teyla, doubtfully.

"A small ship, then," continued Rodney.

"Maybe," said John. "What's happening about the grenza?"

Tam, overhearing, approached their table. "I wanted to talk to you about that," he said.

"Please, sit," said Teyla, gesturing to him to pull up a chair.

Tam sat down, sitting four-square and looking solid and dependable, his hands resting on his knees. "I've had a quick ride round to our nearest neighbours. Gethren, that's the farmer whose boundary wall you saw breached, says he wants to get a hunt together as soon as may be, which I can understand - he can't get his wall fixed with grenza breathing down his neck. So, word's gone out and if it spreads fast enough there may well be a meeting here this evening."

"We would like to begin trade negotiations," said Teyla. "Will that be possible?"

"I daresay it'll be on the agenda, so to speak," said Tam. "We have a fair few contracts already, but the farmers have the stock to supply more, that is if the grenza don't get 'em all."

"I want to go on the hunt," said Ronon.

"Because your first experience of helg-riding was such a success!" commented Rodney.

Tam grinned. "It sounds like that was Gethren's breeding sire you were trying to ride! You can expect some laughs at your expense tonight if the farmers show up." Ronon shuffled uncomfortably. "Mind you, there'll be a few drinks to be had if you make a good story of it!" Ronon visibly brightened. "Anyway, I'd better get back to work. We'll need to have a few barrels in reserve for the meeting. And you can ride Franca to the hunt, if you like," he said to Ronon. "That's my riding helg. She'll look after you!" He chortled his way back to the bar.

"We should go home if we can make an agreement tonight," said Rodney, looking at Boudicca. It would be hard to leave her, he knew.

"I'm going on the hunt" Ronon said firmly. "And kicking this Smeadon guy's ass would be good, too."

Rodney watched John, who was staring at the fire, his left hand holding his right arm just below his injury.

"Are you in pain, John?" asked Teyla.

John made that lop-sided grimace he did when he was trying to appear perfectly fine, but wasn't.

"Sheppard?" Rodney prompted.

"I'm fine," John said, stonily. "Just need to talk to Elizabeth about... stuff."

oOo

Elizabeth stared at her datapad. She'd read the same paragraph of Major Lorne's report twice now and still hadn't taken any of it in. She sat back in her chair and rubbed her fingers over her scalp, the pressure easing away some of her tension. Then she smoothed her hair down and checked the time again. Near enough. She got up and crossed the walkway to the control level.

"Dial up M9H 326 for me, please."

The Gate lit, the chevrons locked, the event horizon erupted and settled.

"Line's open, Ma'am," said the technician, anticipating her request.

"Colonel Sheppard, this is Atlantis." She waited. "Colonel Sheppard, come in."

"Sheppard here," came the answer.

"I can't hear you very well, John. We'll try to clean up the signal. She looked at the technician, who nodded and began adjusting the controls.

"Um, it's probably just me, Elizabeth," came the croaking response. "McKay kindly passed on his cold."

Elizabeth frowned. "John, you sound really bad. And you were hurt today." She heard the note of accusation in her voice and thought it justified. "I'm sending Dr Beckett. No arguments."

"Actually, I think you should."

Elizabeth's throat tightened. If John was accepting the doctor's presence so readily, he must be hurt badly. "John, I can send a Jumper to bring you home right now!"

"Elizabeth, no, I'm okay. Well, you know, not okay, but... I need Beckett to take some samples."

"Samples? Of what?"

"The grenza. The dead one," John said. He coughed, hoarsely. "I shot it. Point blank, set to automatic. It should have been cut in half, but it barely slowed down."

"Like a Wraith?"

"Just like a Wraith. I mean, it didn't look anything like one, but there's something unnatural about them."

"Could it be another evolution of the iratus bug?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

Elizabeth's mind ran through the possible ramifications. She steeled herself, then said, determinedly, "John, Teyla said the creature clawed you. Is it possible that... that it'll change you? Like the iratus DNA?"

There was silence. Then, "I don't know."

"I'm sending Carson with a team. Expect them within the hour," said Elizabeth decisively. "You don't have to stay, John. Someone else can broker a trade agreement."

"I want to see this through, Elizabeth."

"We'll see what Carson says," she temporized. "Atlantis out."

oOo

John moved the radio away from his ear and let his arm flop down onto the blankets. He stared up at the sloping ceiling. He'd come up to the bedroom to take Elizabeth's call and had got into bed to avoid the draught from the window.

John thought back over Elizabeth's words: Carson and a team, within the hour. She was obviously worried. Well, so was he. But was he worrying over nothing? If he'd been clawed or even bitten by an Earth animal, say, a dog, he wouldn't start panicking that he was going to turn into one; that would be ridiculous. But John knew that, in this case, anything was possible. He'd had to watch his own body transform into a horrifying human-iratus hybrid; he'd felt his mind become dark and predatory even as his skin darkened and hardened into a chitinous shell. He doubted the nightmares about that time would ever truly leave him.

John told himself to get up and tell his team that Carson was coming; he should tell them why, and share his suspicions and his fears, and then he'd watch the horror and sympathy wash over their faces and it would be like last time. Maybe he was already changing. Here he was, hidden away in his room, in the dark, just like before. Only this time, he'd turn into a creature even more dreadful.

oOo

"This looks like a pleasant little place!" said Carson, stepping out of the Jumper. He looked at the sign, swinging in the brisk, chilly wind. "Is that a pig?"

"Not sure what it is, Doctor," said Lorne. He looked up at the grey sky. "Let's head inside before it starts to rain again. Coughlin, Reed you stay with the Jumper, Norden, with me."

Carson smiled as he stepped into the warmth of the pub. It reminded him strongly of his local, back in Scotland, except without the tartan soft furnishings, of which the landlord was a little too fond.

"Carson!" Rodney's surprised voice greeted him. "What are you doing here?"

"Did the Colonel not say we were coming?" he asked, looking at the expanse of fur covering Rodney's lap and most of the seat to either side. "Is that a cat or a dog?"

"No, he's still upstairs, and neither - she's a priss, and again, why are you here? Not that I'm not pleased to see you."

"The Colonel asked for me," said Carson. "You said he's upstairs?"

"What? But he's fine! He said he was fine. I mean, he always says that, but..."

"Rodney?"

"Yes?"

"How do I get upstairs?"

"Through there," said Rodney, gesturing to the far door. "It's the first room you come to at the top. But..."

"Thanks, Rodney. Major, if you could wait here...?"

"Sure thing, Doc," replied Lorne.

Carson frowned as he climbed the stairs, wondering why John hadn't told his team they were coming. He knocked on the first door and, receiving no reply, went in. The room was dim, lit only by a low fire and slivers of grey light creeping round the edge of the small, curtained window. There was a Sheppard-shaped heap of blankets on the far bed, which stirred as Carson threw a couple of logs on the fire and livened it up with the poker. He felt a sharp draught coming from the direction of the window and was reminded of the old cottage Granny Beckett had lived in, where it was always draughty, despite the pungent, smoky peat fire that was constantly alight, winter and summer. There was the sound of rustling from behind him and a sleepy, "Oh, hey Beckett."

"It's bloody freezing in here, Colonel," said Carson, turning around. "And dark. I'm going to need to be able to see if I'm going to take some blood."

"Oh, yeah, I suppose." Carson was concerned at the despondent note in John's voice. He twitched the curtains open, which didn't make that much difference to the light level. John swung his legs out of the bed and sat, shivering, even though he was fully clothed. Carson sat down on the next bed - Rodney's, if the clumps of animal hair were anything to go by. He looked at John's bleary, shadowed eyes and tight-lipped expression.

"Listen to me, Colonel. Elizabeth told me you'd been injured and you were worried about... transforming. Well, I can't say for sure, not one hundred percent, but I think it's extremely unlikely that that will happen."

He watched as a spark of hope appeared in John's eyes.

"Last time, you were exposed to the retrovirus through an injury caused by that poor child's feeding hand. The circumstances are not the same."

John said nothing. Carson watched the familiar lip-chewing and frown combination which was a John Sheppard 'deep thought in progress' signal.

"Not that I don't think it's a good idea for you to stay in bed if you're not feeling so good, but you've been lying up here, brooding, haven't you? If you'd talked to Rodney, he probably could have put your mind at rest; despite his low opinion of medical science, he does know a thing or two."

John smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

"Although, having said all that, I'm sure there's enough scope for ordinary infection in an injury caused by some evil beastie's claws. Come over here and let me have a look." Carson set the unstable wooden chair in the light from the window. He helped John remove his fleece and t-shirt and then opened his medical bag and tipped it toward the grey daylight.

"Actually, we'll start with this, as a precaution," he said, waving an IV bag at John. "Antibiotics." He wondered what to hang it from and spotted the curtain rail. "Let's shift this chair a bit closer to the window."

"It's cold, Carson!" John complained.

Carson pulled a blanket off the bed and gave it to John, but then the blanket was either in the way of the light or the area on John's arm he was trying to get at for the IV needle and both men nearly lost their tempers in their frustration. Then John got the flashlight from his pack and held it so that Carson could see, whereupon there was another awkward moment because the intense beam of the flashlight revealed the many bruises John had received from his morning's adventure, not to mention the dark circle from the handle of Teyla's scythe that he'd encountered the day before.

"Is there anything else you're hiding, Colonel? A broken leg? Head injury?"

"I wasn't hiding; you just didn't ask," said John sulkily. "And it's Ronon that has a head injury!"

"Really?" said Carson, dangerously. "Well, I'll deal with him next, then!"

Carson examined John's arm and grudgingly admitted that Lil had done a good job of the stitching, then he took John's temperature and blood pressure, took some blood for analysis and checked him over thoroughly, knowing that he could only get away with it because John was tethered to the IV.

"It's finished," said John, as the bag began to sag emptily.

"There's still a bit in there."

"Can't you squeeze it, make it go in quicker?"

Carson rolled his eyes. "No," he said firmly. He glared at John. John glared back. Carson snorted. John raised his eyebrows. They both smirked.

"We're a pair, aren't we?" said Carson. "I'm sorry. I know you hate all this." He waved vaguely at the IV."

"You're not going to make me go back are you?" John gave him a pleading look.

"No, you can stay. But," Carson waved an admonishing finger, "in a supervisory capacity only! You're injured, you have a throat infection, you have a low grade fever, which means no exertion and, strangely enough, no hanging around in near freezing temperatures getting soaking wet! You stay inside!"

"There are no bathrooms inside," mumbled John.

"You deliberately try my patience, don't you, Colonel?" said Carson, with mock exasperation.

"Maybe," smirked John.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"Sit down and eat, Sheppard!" Rodney ordered.

John turned away from the window, crossed the room and sat back down at the table. He picked up his fork and began idly pushing bacon around his plate. Rodney tried to focus on his own breakfast. The helg bacon was smoked, but not too salty, which was often a problem with home-cured bacon, he thought. Tomatoes would have been nice, just fried until they were squishy, but the locals served a strange kind of chutney with their bacon, which Rodney wasn't too keen on; he was persevering with it, though, sure that it was a taste that he would acquire. He looked up from his chutney contemplation to see John at the window again.

"They're going," John said, meaning that Ronon, Maddy and a few of the local farmers were leaving on helg-back for the main meeting-point of the hunt.

"Good," said Rodney. "Maybe you'll sit down and eat now, because watching good bacon go to waste is more than I can stand!"

"You eat it, then."

"You know what? I will! Far be it from me to deny you the pleasure of martyring yourself on the altar of whichever God looks after Colonels who sulk because they can't go out and do something dangerous every day of the week!"

He picked up John's plate, slid the bacon onto his own and began to eat it with another good-sized dollop of the chutney. John still stooped, peering out of the low window. Rodney ignored him. Boudicca paused in her morning's fireside grooming, looked at Rodney accusingly and then stalked away to rub against John's leg and push her furry head into his hand. Rodney rolled his eyes. _Yet another female to fall for the patented 'wounded puppy' act, _he thought, although, on reflection, Boudicca probably wouldn't think twice before devouring a wounded puppy. He finally set down his knife and fork. Sheppard was kneeling on the floor, Boudicca's front paws on his thighs. She was trying to groom him and he was protesting, but obviously enjoying the attention.

Rodney heard the front door open and then the latch to the parlour door rattled and Gard entered. He looked curiously unsure of himself and stood, glancing between John and Rodney, his cap held in his hands, revealing a mostly bald pate with a surrounding fringe of wispy gray hair.

"Mornin'" he said.

Rodney and John responded in kind and John added, "Thanks for your help yesterday."

A flicker of a smile crossed Gard's face.

"I still say you were lucky, but there's not many could've killed one o' those single-handed."

John shrugged, and his distraction earned him a lick from Boudicca which sent his normally wayward forelock springing into the air. It made him into the human equivalent of an exclamation point, Rodney thought.

Gard approached.

"I've a favour to ask, Dr McKay," he said, uncertainly.

"Oh, really?" said Rodney, sitting back in his chair and twiddling his thumbs in a way that suggested, he thought, that he was at leisure to receive such requests, but that they wouldn't necessarily be granted.

"I find myself in need of a spot of technical know-how and thought you might be the man for the job."

"'Technical know-how'," repeated Rodney, shuddering at the phrase. "And what, precisely, is this technical challenge that requires the accumulated knowledge and experience of an intergalactic genius such as myself?"

"Uh, well, it's my ship. It... uh... won't go."

_Ha! I knew it!_ Rodney thought. Aloud, he said, "A ship that 'won't go'. Any chance of being more specific? Type of ship? Nature of the 'won't go' issue?"

"It's a Gate ship, don't know its origins. Reliable, though, usually, gets me from A to B. Starts like a dream, most mornings, but today... nothing."

Rodney heard suppressed sniggering coming from John's direction and knew all kinds of witty quips about Triple A breakdown cover would be coming his way later.

"When did you last 'fill 'er up'?" asked Rodney.

Gard looked blank.

"Never mind! Is it far?" he asked.

Gard shook his head.

"A step or so, Gatewards."

"I'll get my toolbox, and a couple of oily rags for authenticity," Rodney said, getting up.

"Vest and weapon, McKay," John reminded.

Rodney, intrigued in spite of himself, was soon ready and following Gard out of the pub.

"Rodney, wait." He turned back. John stood on the threshold. "I should come. Watch your six."

"Carson said no going out today," said Rodney. Boudicca pushed past John and stood next to Rodney. He put one hand on her furry head and scratched between her ears. "Boudie's got it covered, Sheppard."

John nodded, reluctantly. "Check in every hour," he said.

oOo

Teyla sat down opposite her newly-elected counterpart and smiled. Melda smiled back.

"This is better, isn't it?" said Melda, leaning forward, her dark blonde, wriggly hair bobbing slightly, as if reflecting her general good nature. "I couldn't hear a thing last night with all that rowdy rabble hanging around. I wasn't even sure if they'd chosen me, at first!"

"It was noisy," agreed Teyla, recalling how crowded the room had been the previous night, with as many of the farmers and their families as possible, at short notice, gathered together. "I am still unsure how any decisions were reached," Teyla said. "In my culture, everybody speaks by turn, and debate is clear and structured."

"Oh, it's always like that here!" replied Melda. "It reminds me of migrating birds: lots of noisy twittering for ages, no apparent organisation, and then, all of a sudden, off they go!"

"That is a good analogy," agreed Teyla, who had been unaware, until the farmers began to leave, that the time and place of the hunt had been agreed, a group had been assigned to find Colsen, and Melda had been chosen to work out a provisional trading agreement.

Melda picked up a sheaf of papers in front of her.

"Shall we begin?"

oOo

Maddy had been dead right, thought Ronon, as he sat in the milling midst of snorting helgen; men, women and children astride, variously excited, apprehensive or grim-faced about the coming hunt. Earlier, Tam had brought Franca out to him, and after a brief word of instruction, had let Ronon mount, and left him to it.

Ronon had discovered the wisdom of Maddy's words; Franca was much more comfortable to sit on than the massive beast he'd taken a flying leap onto the previous day. Narrower-backed and saddled, Ronon could feel her bristly sides against his lower legs, and she responded easily when he squeezed her. She seemed a good-tempered animal and had no guile or, as Maddy had warned, ideas of her own. Soon, Ronon had had her skittering up and down in front of the pub, stopping dead and turning on a pebble, all achieved with subtle shifts of his weight alone. She carried out every task with simple, snorting enthusiasm and seemed to think that whatever Ronon suggested was a great idea. He suspected, that if he set her at the side of the pub, she'd give it her best shot to climb the wall. And so, he'd realised, the nature of the relationship between rider and helg had to be one of absolute trust; in her simple mind, Franca would follow Ronon's lead because she trusted him to make the right decisions for her. He would be sure never to abuse that trust.

Maddy had been talking non-stop all the way to the meet, and was still going. She grinned and jigged up and down on her saddle.

"We'll go round Greshen's bounds, 'n' then as far as my place," she chattered, "'n' then spread out and see if we can flush 'em out and then..."

"Mads!" This casual imperative caught Maddy's attention immediately and she began steering Pinky through the crowd. Ronon saw her draw up alongside a large, very bristly old helg, ridden by a man of about John's age. He had Maddy's mousey-brown hair and her look of square-jawed determination, combined with a slightly retroussé nose, which, on Maddy at least, usually twitched with mischief. This must surely be Maddy's father; he of the plain speaking and great thirst for ale.

Maddy looked up at him, her face serious, her mouth a firm line, giving sharp little nods every so often at his low-voiced instruction. He finished his lecture, flicked her escaping curls affectionately, looked up and gave Ronon a nod of acknowledgement then set his helg off to join another group.

"Dad says I'm to stay at the back," said Maddy, without rancour. "He says I can ride the first run but then I have to go back with the other kids."

"D'you mind?"

"Not really." She gave a rueful smile. "I like riding fast with everyone, but the hunt's not for fun." She paused. "It's just what we have to do."

oOo

John put his radio back in the pocket of his fleece. Carson had made contact, as arranged, and John was relieved that his blood test had checked out okay, apart from an elevated white cell count, which was, apparently, expected. Carson hadn't finished analysing the samples he'd taken from the dead grenza; he had said they were 'interesting' but he needed more time to use the Ancient equipment to study them. He had also reiterated his orders to John to stay in and rest, which John was finding very difficult to do.

Ronon was out hunting, Teyla was in the other bar, deep in trade negotiations and now even Rodney had found something to occupy his time. Maybe John should sit in with Teyla and help. He left the parlour and stuck his head round the far door to listen.

"It's easiest if we drive them through the Gate for slaughter. The Catosians handle it for a very reasonable price, and then they Gate the carcasses to an address of your choice."

"Does this include the heads and the entrails?" asked Teyla prosaically.

John shut the door. Teyla was handling the whole thing just fine. 'Heads and entrails' - _eesh! _He shuddered.

John wandered back through to the parlour. He could annoy Rodney over the comms... There came the sounds of arrival from outside; the skittering and snorting of helgs, the rattle and creak of a wheeled vehicle and the chattering and laughing of women mixed with the higher voices of children. The latch clicked and several women entered, carrying assorted babies and surrounded by a milling band of toddlers. The toddlers were shooed outside the door, mostly willingly.

"No, Tallen, you stay outside with the others!" said one of the women. "There's nothing for you to do in here!" She was pregnant and also carried a sturdy-looking baby. The toddler clinging to her skirt asked something unintelligible to John, to which the mother replied, in a long-suffering way, "Maybe later, we'll see."

The little boy trotted out and the women, seeing John, smiled and introduced themselves.

"I'm Grella," said the mother of the baby and toddler. "I think you know my oldest, Maddy?"

"John Sheppard," he said. "You're Maddy's Mom? She's a great kid!"

"Thank you! Would you like to join us? We thought we'd have a bit of a get-together, while everyone else is on the hunt; have a bit of a catch-up, let the children play."

"Oh, well," he hesitated. "You won't want me around... and I have a bit of a cold. Wouldn't want to give it to any of the babies."

"Oh, that won't make any difference," said Grella. "There's always something going round. Please, join us!"

The women moved the chairs into a circle so that John soon found himself a reluctant participant in a mother and baby group and wondered if he'd be required to sing the local equivalent of 'Row, row, row your boat'. The youngest woman, Menet, who looked to be in her late teens, sat on the floor in front of the fireplace.

"We were talking about you on the way here," she said. "You killed a grenza, didn't you? Just you, on your own!"

"Um, well, yeah, I guess," he floundered, not displeased with Menet's admiration, but embarrassed nonetheless.

"You were lucky not to be killed!" said Grella, repressively, plonking her baby on the floor and taking out a dull-coloured, practical-looking piece of knitting. John shrank into his seat, feeling like a disgraced schoolboy.

"I think it was very brave!" another of the mothers giggled. What was her name? Berra? Bora? John was losing track. "And you were hurt!" All the mothers looked at his arm in its sling; now he felt like a specimen under a microscope. John found himself planning an escape; the circle was tight, but if he shoved his chair back suddenly, he could make a break for it.

"It's always the way!" one of the pregnant women sighed. John had no idea of her name. "You men go out looking for trouble, getting yourselves hurt, while we just have to sit here and endure!" She glanced at her protruding bump with a long-suffering air. Some of the other women looked at each other and there was some eye-rolling and smirking. Berra (or Bora) giggled again. John realised she was probably feeding her baby, but she had on so many overlapping layers of clothing that he really couldn't tell.

"I hope I don't have to endure too much when it's my turn!" said Menet, blushing. She picked up Grella's baby, which was crawling toward the fire, and set it on a new path.

"Oh, how I suffered!" lamented the mother who had provoked the eye-rolling.

_No, _thought John. _No. No birth stories. Just... no!_

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Leshen," said Grella. "It wasn't that bad - I was there, remember? And Menet, you'll be fine. It's just another part of life: get up, feed the helgen, light the fire, give birth, and so on. Do you have any children, John?"

John felt the full force of the circle's attention again. It was like being interrogated by a Wraith queen; should he just kneel and get it over with?

"No, I don't."

"Do you have a wife?" asked Berra.

"Um... no, I'm not married," he said. He didn't know if they had divorce on this planet and didn't feel like explaining.

There was a stir of interest and various speaking glances were exchanged.

"As a trader, you'll be in regular contact with us," Grella mused.

"Oh, well, I have a lot of other responsibilities," he said desperately.

Grella gave him a calculating look and John had the feeling that she was running through, in her mind, a list of likely candidates for the position of Mrs Sheppard. He was relieved when there was a sharp crack at the window.

"I'll go!" One of the women, a baby tucked under her arm, shoved her chair back and marched to the door.

"Bren, if that was Gorta, tell him he has to come in and sit with me!" another called out.

A cold draught blew in as Bren flung open both doors and John could hear the excited cries and running feet of the children playing. Then Bren called them all to heel and John almost leapt up and saluted; she had a command voice worthy of any drill sergeant. There was a much lower voiced discussion at the door and then Bren returned.

"Who was it?" Grella asked.

"Handa," said Bren and there was a general unsurprised murmur around the group.

"Are you sure?" asked Menet. "Sometimes the others just blame Handa because she's always in trouble, anyway."

"Oh, yes," said Bren, with simple pride. "She admitted it. Nothing if not honest in her devilry, that's my Handa!"

Grella's baby crawled up to John and sat on one of his boots, clutching the leg of his pants with a grubby hand.

"You can pick her up if you like," said Grella.

"Oh, um..." John thought it would probably be insulting to both child and mother if he said he didn't like, but his hesitation was misinterpreted.

"Sorry, I forgot about your arm. Is it very painful?" Grella got up and lifted the baby into John's lap.

"No, it's fine," John said, putting his free arm around the baby, who showed an alarming tendency to try to climb up him.

"Ellet, meet John. John, meet Ellet."

There was a chorus of 'ah's and other assorted doting noises and John wasn't sure whether they were for him or baby Ellet, or their combined effect.

"I bet you'd make a wonderful father!" giggled Berra. John smiled, rigidly, wondering where Teyla had got to.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Rodney tried not to laugh; laughing at a man's pride and joy could only lead to trouble and Gard was obviously proud of his little ship.

"This is the _Skyrunner_," he said, slapping the ship's hull proprietorially.

"Nice!" squeaked Rodney, struggling to maintain control. It looked like a mushroom; especially in its woodland setting. It might have grown there overnight, some giant, alien, broad-stalked, domed fungus. Rodney could see how it would fit through the Gate nicely, its domed section giving plenty of clearance; he strongly doubted it was space-worthy, however. "So, where did you get it?"

"Junkyard on Pharos III - you know it?"

Rodney shook his head.

"I'll give you the address. Good stuff, there."

Rodney slowly circled the little ship, noting the blackened hull and worn sections of heat-shielding. Boudicca followed him; his eyes met hers for a brief flicker and he read in them her puzzlement over his interest in the strange object.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't actually take this, erm... vessel out of the breathable atmosphere, do you?"

Gard fidgeted and scratched his nose. "She gets me through the Gate. Up to now she's been a nice little runaround, y'know, short hops? And she's a base for my work."

_That's a no, then_, thought Rodney.

Gard flicked open a small panel, typed something into a keypad and a section of the hull hinged upward. He climbed in and Rodney followed. It was dark inside and a stale, sweet smell hung in the air, from whatever Gard smoked in his pipe, Rodney thought, his nose twitching with distaste. Boudicca put the tip of her nose over the threshold and then hastily drew back. She gave a quick snarl of farewell and then bounded off into the woodland. _So much for my bodyguard_, thought Rodney.

There was very little space inside the ship, the stalk of the mushroom, which provided all of the standing room, being no more than six feet across on the inside. The flat underside of the domed section was partly taken up by a small sleeping platform and opposite that was a curved control panel, with a view screen, currently dark, above. There were no seats.

"See, it's simple," said Gard, surreptitiously shoving something under his bedding. _Probably dirty underwear_, thought Rodney. "This is your starting sequence, here's the control stick, for steering, this bit's all for leaving the atmosphere and re-entry, so I don't use that."

Rodney ran his hands over the controls and shook his head. "I don't recognize any of this," he said. "Can you read this script?" He pointed to the labels on some of the buttons.

Gard shrugged. "Never needed to."

Rodney set down his pack, squatted on the floor and prized off an access panel.

"Let's have a look, then," he said, his fingers twitching with anticipation. Completely unfamiliar technology; a rare treat.

oOo

The hunt had split up to cover the countryside in a broad sweep, with the intention of flushing the grenza out of hiding. Ronon sat tall and loose-limbed, his body relaxed, moving easily with the rapid bobbing gait of his mount. He could see riders either side of him through the trees, and behind him were scattered groups of children and those adults designated to keep an eye on them.

There came a chain of calls ringing through the forest from Ronon's left and the woman riding nearest to him picked it up and yelled out: "Left flank's got one on the run! Pick up the pace!" She urged her mount into a run. Ronon dutifully passed the call on down the line and Franca, without being asked, surged forward. She was good at picking a route through the woodland, avoiding pits and skirting briar patches; Ronon had to be alert, though, to steer round areas with low-hanging branches or flatten himself to her back because Franca didn't allow for his height.

The ranks had closed up and Ronon could see several riders, hurtling along through the trees, including Maddy's father, to his right. The forest whipped past in a blur of brown and gray, the fallen leaves a yellow carpet beneath. Ronon grinned with joy at the speed and the sense of rightness: these people, these animals belonged here, working together, defending their livelihood. And, for a while, he belonged here too.

There was a discordant flash of angular darkness ahead of him and something darted here and there with quick, insect-like movements. The riders closed ranks further and Ronon noticed Maddy's father, who was on his right, draw a handgun. The woman to his left held a crossbow, both hands on her weapon, her mount needing no guidance, reins looped round the pommel of her saddle. Ronon drew his blaster.

He could no longer see the creature, but there was the report of a weapon to his right and shouts also from that direction. Then it dived out of a thicket just ahead, its long, razor-sharp, iron-hard claws snickering before it, rearing on its hind legs and letting out an eerie ululating cry. He fired and was sure he'd scored a hit, but the grenza dropped to all fours and charged away at an angle to Ronon's left. More firing sounded; the report of projectile weapons and the whine and zing of energy blasts. Somebody shouted, "It's down!" and the firing intensified and then suddenly stopped.

Maddy's father trotted up. "Did we get it? Is it dead?"

A shout came down the line of hunters from the left. "One kill, another sighting toward Pate's land. Regroup at his gate."

"Pate's?" queried Ronon.

"Pate Farr. Follow me. I'm Fren. I know you're Ronon. Maddy's told me quite a bit about you. And your friends."

oOo

Teyla said farewell to Melda, happy with her morning's work. Melda, who had been educated on Catosia and had learned a little about legal contracts, would write out a fair copy of their agreement and then both parties would sign. It was a good trade and Elizabeth would be pleased.

Teyla wondered how Ronon was getting on and hoped he wouldn't take any unnecessary risks. The trouble was, Ronon would consider most risks entirely necessary and very often, enjoyable. A burst of feminine laughter came from the parlour; Teyla decided to investigate. She was greeted by the sight of a lively circle of women, babies in their laps or crawling at their feet and, to her surprise, John seemed to be very much an accepted part of the circle. He was slouching in his seat, his long legs stretched out; there was a baby asleep in his lap, and another little crawler was trying to climb over his crossed legs. He was laughing at something his neighbour had just said and she was giggling away, her face bright pink.

The outer door opened and a group of children pushed a toddler over the threshold. The child tottered up to the group and tugged on one of the women's dresses, presumably his mother, announcing, at a high volume: "Crunchy snegs!"

"You're not going to let them are you, Grella?" said one of the other mothers in a superior tone.

The toddler, his need obviously urgent, repeated his request. "Crunchy snegs, Mummy!"

Grella hauled him up into her lap and sat him facing her. John noticed Teyla watching and smiled, rather sheepishly, as if he shouldn't be enjoying such a domesticated environment. He moved his chair back so that Teyla could insert another next to him.

"Can you ask politely, Tallen?"

The little boy looked thoughtful, his brown eyes rolling up to the ceiling, one finger going in his mouth. He took several large breaths and then said, very deliberately, "Crunchy snegs, Mummy. Pleeeese."

Grella smiled. "Tam!" she called.

Tam came through the door behind Teyla carrying a tray with several bowls on it. "Don't say I don't anticipate your every need, ladies!". He placed the tray on a table and a swarm of children immediately descended like voracious bugs decimating a harvest.

"Leave some for us!" ordered Grella, firmly.

Tam lifted a bowl out of the scrum and handed it to Grella, who passed it round the circle. Teyla saw that it contained deep brown fried pieces of what must be helg rind and a clutch of pickled eggs. It looked like a nest made by a strange bird.

John introduced Teyla to the group and she took a piece of rind when the bowl came her way. It was certainly crunchy, with a hint of salt, and very fatty. She thought it would provide lots of energy for a long day's hunting but she wouldn't want to eat it all the time.

"Is Ellet allowed some?" John asked. The baby had woken up and was looking very interested in the proceedings. She reached out toward the bowl with both hands and gave an ear-splitting shriek.

"Yes, but it'll be messy," Grella warned.

Ellet grabbed a piece in her chubby fist and began sucking on it noisily, porky drool dribbling down her arm and onto John. He didn't seem to notice.

John was frowning and then he gave a huff of laughter. "Crunchies and eggs," he said.

"I was wondering what a sneg was," commented Teyla.

"Me too," said John.

oOo

Everybody was on edge; that a grenza had been killed so early in the day should have been a triumph. It was rare that there was more than one and John had already killed one the day before. But reports were trickling in of a sighting on Fren's land and another, which was at least said to be heading back toward the mountains, on the forest road, as well as the creature that had been seen near Pate's farm. And if there were three, why not more?

The children had been escorted home and the adults seemed unsure what to do. There was a cluster of the most senior farmers, who seemed to be the decision-makers; their helgen stood, stolidly, almost nose-to-nose, as their riders decided the best course of action. Ronon sidled Franca up to them.

"I can get you more firepower," he offered.

The riders shifted their mounts aside to allow him to enter the group.

"What kind of firepower are we talking about?" asked one of the farmers.

"A couple of our Gate ships, with powerful weapons. They'd solve your problem."

Most of the group seemed positive about this suggestion, but the most senior, a very old man on a very old mount, shook his head and held up his hand for silence.

"That's all very fine, but we should be asking ourselves why this is happening." He glared round the circle, with pale watery eyes. "You know I've seen more winters than the rest of you. Never before have grenza come down from the mountains in these numbers. Never! We kill these ones, who's to say more won't come to replace them? We need to get to the root of the problem!"

Ronon was ready to repeat his offer and ride to the Gate then and there for reinforcements, but they were interrupted by the sudden harsh cry of a grenza close by, and then an answering high-pitched chittering from the opposite direction.

"We must stay together!" the old farmer insisted, but it was too late. Some of the hunters formed up in a group on the road, but some had already broken away to charge into the forest, scattering amongst the trees.

"There's too few of them, they'll be killed!" Fren cried and kicked his mount into the woods in pursuit of the smaller group. Ronon looked up and down the road at the leaderless hunters. They just weren't ready for this; they didn't have a strategy for it or someone like Sheppard to lead them. Ronon gave an angry roar and set Franca to follow Fren in amongst the trees.

oOo

"Your main pathway to the anti-grav drive was fried," said Rodney, emerging awkwardly on his back from the inner workings of Gard's ship. "And your back-up route." He sat up. "And your back-up back-up. I've patched two of those." He eased out a crick in his neck. "Your initialiser was shot to pieces too, so I've done you a quick-and-dirty fix that'll get you started, but you might want to take your next trip to that junkyard you were telling me about."

"For spare parts?" Gard nodded and chewed on his pipe.

Rodney had been thinking that Gard should make a deposit at the junkyard, in the form of his ship, rather than a withdrawal, but agreed instead. "Yes, spare parts. Lots of them."

"I'll show you what she can do!" said Gard, closing the entry hatch.

"Oh, that's okay, I really should be getting back," said Rodney, worried that he knew exactly what the ship could do, and that most of it wasn't compatible with continuing life. But Gard had already initialised the take-off sequence and Rodney tensed for the moment the anti-grav drive kicked in. _Please don't explode! _he thought, closing his eyes and wincing.

"Ah, you fixed her right enough, Dr McKay!"

There was a hefty slap on his back and Rodney slowly opened his eyes to see a view of swiftly moving treetops on the screen in front of him. He straightened up from his tensely hunched posture and his fingers, which had left nail imprints in his palms, uncurled slowly.

"Oh, well, you know, it was nothing! Just interpreted a totally alien system and created a few innovative solutions on the fly! All in a day's work!"

Gard was studying his display screen intently and tapped it to enlarge a section, hissing through his teeth, his face grim. Rodney's self-satisfaction dropped away like a stone.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Trouble," said Gard.

oOo

Ronon was alone. He had followed Fren's path into the forest, but then there were distressed cries and the call of a grenza to his right, so he'd whipped out his blaster and chased them down, bursting into a clearing to find one rider on the ground, her helg obviously dead, and the grenza disappearing into the forest, the limp figure of a man clutched in its claws. Ronon kicked Franca forward and she surged willingly on, plunging back into the darkness beneath the trees. The man's body was discarded on the ground not far away and Ronon only pulled up briefly to observe the staring eyes and crooked limbs; there was nothing he could do.

He had followed the grenza, having to slow down to observe the signs of its passing: the disturbed ground, the patches of crushed undergrowth, the occasional broken branch. He had lost the trail eventually and, feeling the ground begin to climb, he had urged Franca up the slope. They had emerged on the top of a ridge where there was a long break in the treeline that looked like an occasionally used path or possibly a firebreak. Ronon looked down over the low land, shielding his eyes against the fine rain that had started up again. It lay over the brown winter woodland like a gray gauze, broken only rarely by thin, drifting spirals of smoke from scattered farmhouses. Franca shifted slightly and it was so quiet that Ronon could hear the soft creak of her leather harness and the in and out of her huffing breath. What had happened to the hunt?

Franca's ears twitched, and swivelled here and there and Ronon felt her muscles tense beneath him. He sensed that he was being watched and yet could see nothing; all was still and silent. The feeling of scrutiny increased and Ronon drew his blaster, turned Franca and stared intently up and down the ridge and into the forest on either side. Something caught his eye and the rain-blackened branches sharpened and resolved themselves into the angular, leathery limbs of a grenza. It knew Ronon had seen it. The creature's jagged-toothed jaw opened wide and it howled into the silence, throwing its head back and rearing up, its clawed limbs stretching and grasping as if anticipating the feel of rending flesh.

It moved, out into the open and away from Ronon, along the top of the ridge, the clear ground allowing it to stretch its gangling limbs into a hurtling flight. Ronon fired and the whine of his energy weapon rang out. He hit the creature, but the force seemed to be reflected somehow. Ronon barely had to touch his heels to Franca's sides before she plunged forward. The grenza's limbs were a tangled blur and he urged Franca faster; she responded with a burst of speed and he crouched low over her neck, aiming their combined intent at their fleeing prey. He fired again, and again the creature continued its headlong flight, barely flinching.

Ronon felt determination settle like iron in his heart. He would kill this beast; he would grasp its gruesome head and twist its neck til the bones ground and snapped, if he had to. He urged Franca to even greater efforts and, amazingly she responded; they were gaining. The creature's carrion-smell was in his nose, making him want to retch. He focussed on the creature's gruesome form and remembered his disastrous ride of the previous day. With a wild grin he steadied Franca, felt the rhythm of her movement beneath him and placed his hands firmly either side of the saddle. Then he thrust down hard and brought his feet up beneath him, planting them next to his hands, and immediately lifted his hands away, his arms moving naturally to balance him, to compensate for the movements of his mount. Franca moved up alongside the grenza and Ronon stood, poised, like a bird about to take to the air.

He leapt.

He landed on the creature's back, feeling the hardness of chitinous plates, tough, leathery skin and the frenzied movement of muscle and bone. The grenza screamed its eerie call and its speed faltered. It tried to reach its knife-like claws behind it. Ronon drew his sword from its sheath on his back and parried the wicked claws. Then he reached round the creature's neck and stabbed his blade into the its throat as hard as he could.

The blade rebounded, he nearly dropped it and the grenza's claws raked down his arm. He angled the tip of the blade toward the animal's throat and pulled back, but again, he could get no purchase. He felt the claws bite into his side. Then he remembered: the eyes. Ronon dropped his sword, and, gripping hard with his legs, he drew one of the small knives out of his hair, pulled himself forward with an arm round the beast's throat and stabbed straight into its eye, then drew back his hand and used his fist like a hammer to force the blade deep into the creature's brain.

It dropped like a stone and Ronon fell with it. He fell and fell and, in a hurtling, blurring split-second, Ronon realised that the ridge had ended in a sheer, rocky spur, which plunged down and down to the forest floor. With a sickening crack his progress was halted by a sturdy tree trunk. Ronon lay in a sprawled heap of pain and confusion. As his senses settled, he realised that the steep drop extended a long way below him. He'd been lucky.

He closed his eyes and wondered what had become of Franca. He would try to move soon. And if he couldn't, they could trace him by his tracker implant. The forest was silent once more and Ronon felt the soft caress of hazy rain against his skin.

Then, there was a chittering cry from below and, a moment later, an answering cry from above.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The mothers and children had gone home, escorted by Tam with his large gun.

"We came armed, Tam," had said Grella, drawing a heavy-looking pistol out of her skirt pocket. John had thought it would make a good club, even if it didn't fire.

"You've a lot of little'uns with you," Tam had replied. "I wouldn't feel easy letting you go off with the grenza about, so I'm coming whether you want me or no."

Tam had departed, Lil had set out lunch for John and Teyla and then returned to the kitchen, to prepare a feast for the returning hunters.

John wandered out into the kitchen garden. It wasn't raining, for a change, although the ground was wet underfoot and the scurrying strips of low cloud against a grey-white sky suggested the rain wouldn't hold off for long. John thought about the morning he had spent with the women and children. He had felt awkward at first and uncomfortable about their avid interest in himself, and their very open and direct way of discussing the details of their own lives. He had gradually relaxed, however, in the atmosphere of easy acceptance, and particularly when Ellet had sat in his lap, studying him with huge-eyed fascination, but entirely without judgement. She had dribbled and blown a tiny, experimental Bronx cheer; he had copied (not the dribbling) and the basis of a friendship was laid down.

As John automatically scanned the treeline and checked for the presence of his Beretta (he had stuck it down the back of his BDUs, safety very definitely on, when the children had arrived), he reflected that although he spent his life protecting people, he very rarely got to enjoy the company of the ordinary civilians that he was prepared to give his life for. To simply observe normal lives, full of the everyday challenges of glorious mundanity, was a privilege.

John reached the outhouse, lit the candle and shut the door. He sat on the throne of chilly solitude and closed his eyes. Carson had been right; he did feel better after resting. His arm was still sore, but not too bad. He'd be able to fire a P90 if he had to. His throat didn't feel as angry either. And Teyla had made a good agreement, which would hopefully be mutually acceptable to the locals and Atlantis. John made a decision; once Ronon and Rodney had returned, they would quit while they were ahead. Gard could deal with that guy, Smeadon, whatever he was up to. John was taking his team home, mission completed, with minimal injuries.

He stood up, blew out the candle and stepped outside; it was raining again. The kitchen door burst open and the maid, Tirren came out and immediately flattened herself against the wall. She looked very distressed. John hurried over.

"Colonel! Some men came!" She was nearly incoherent with fear. "I thought they were traders. They hurt Lil!"

John threw off his sling and drew his sidearm. "Where are they?

"In the bar."

He heard a crash coming from inside and a male cry of pain. Teyla was in trouble.

"Are they armed?" Tirren merely stood, shocked, unspeaking. "Tirren, did they have weapons, guns?"

"I don't know... some did."

John turned and ran round the side of the building to the front, noting the presence of a large armoured vehicle, and crouched down below the window. He raised his head just enough to see in. A heap on the floor next to the bar was Lil. There were six men, two holding Teyla, who was drooping as if dazed. A third looked like he might be questioning her and suddenly stepped forward, gripped her face, forced her head up and held a handgun pressed into her cheek. John raised his gun and fired through the glass at the remaining three men. He got off several shots and definitely hit two of them before the man doing the questioning, who seemed to be the leader, began to fire back.

John ran again, right round to the kitchen, in through the door and crouched down behind the table, listening. He heard shouts which sounded like they were out the front of the pub. He eased forward, toward the inner door. It was open slightly and John pushed it further, gently, and slipped through, bent double to crouch behind the bar.

"You're the one, aren't you?" a harsh voice said. "You're the Athosian who joined up with the Atlanteans? You're one of them!" There was the sound of a ringing slap. John edged round the side of the bar. He could see the two men restraining Teyla, who was sagging further, as if barely conscious. From what John could see of their condition, Teyla had put up quite a fight.

Somebody groaned. "Shut up, Breg. Just bind it, you'll be fine."

John looked at the clutter of objects Tam kept behind the bar. He picked up the bottle of ink and hurled it back through the kitchen door. A loud smash came from the kitchen. Footsteps strode unwarily to the bar and as somebody leant over, John fired straight up; his bullet ripped through the man's head and he fell. John immediately dived round the side of the bar, low to the ground, fully aware that he needed to pick his targets carefully and avoid hurting Teyla. He fired. Someone returned fire and a splinter of wood flew out of the floor next to him; he pulled back behind the bar and squirmed along the floor into the parlour, then ran round to the front door and into the little lobby. He could hear struggling and fighting; Teyla was taking advantage of the confusion.

A creak from behind him warned John that he was in trouble, so that the blow aimed at his head glanced off and landed on his shoulder instead. Another blow landed on his wrists and he dropped the Para .45. He launched himself at his attacker and forced the man back out of the front door of the pub. They landed on the muddy ground and John knew he needed to subdue his opponent as soon as possible. He grabbed the man's hair and tried to bash his head on the rocky ground, getting in several good thumps while the man's fists impacted John's ribs and stomach, and then the hands came up and pushed against John's throat and under his chin, forcing him off. They rolled over so that John was underneath; he felt the man grab his hair and try to return the head-bashing strategy. John brought up a knee and strained to push against the man's body, his hands going to his enemy's throat to choke him.

A gun fired and rocky chips flew into John's face. Someone shouted and his opponent was suddenly gone, leaving him lying on the ground, staring up at a gun which moved from his body to be held against Teyla's head. John froze. Teyla had a bruise on her cheek and her lip was split, her gaze unfocussed. Cold, hard rage was a solid lump in his throat.

"Colonel Sheppard," said the man. "This is a fortuitous encounter, indeed!"

"I don't feel so lucky," said John, struggling up to sitting, only to receive a kick to his chest from one of the other men, which sent him sprawling in the dirt once more. "You one of Smeadon's men?"

The man smiled, nastily. "Indeed. I am, as you say, 'one of Smeadon's men'. My name is Karron. I command Smeadon's troops."

John was torn between making fun of the man's name and questioning the idea of Smeadon having troops. Sneering won out.

"Karen? Isn't that a girl's name?"

A punishing kick to John's ribs made him regret his choice only slightly. He tried to retain an expression of smirking contempt even through his pain, which, he flattered himself, he was rather good at; he'd had enough practice, over the years.

"Put them in the truck," Karron said, curtly.

"He killed Breg, Karron! And shot me and Kant."

"Just get him in the truck and don't damage him too much!"

This was taken as permission to damage John moderately and he fought back and gave as good as he got until a furious kick to his chest winded him and he was thrown into a small space. A panel was fastened on top leaving him in darkness. He lay, gasping for breath, unable to move, or even think, until, with a rush, his lungs expanded and he took great, heaving gasps of muggy, fume-ridden air. There was also a familiar scent of flowers and resin and clean leather, and something warm against his side.

"Teyla?"

A soft groan came from close by. "John?"

"You okay?"

"I will be fine." Her voice was thready, as if she were still dazed, but John knew she would tell him if she were seriously injured.

The vehicle jerked several times and then its engine started with a deafening roar and John felt it begin to move. The space they were in was dark and noisy and cramped and they were bounced up and down against the walls of their prison with bruising force. John pulled Teyla close, protecting her against the worst of the knocks. He knew that, however much he might wish their uncomfortable journey to end, what lay in wait could be much worse.

oOo

Ronon had realised, as he lay, becoming even more soaked by the fine, misty rain, listening to the chittering and crying of the approaching grenza, that his leg was broken. This, even he had to admit, was a problem. Happy to endure, 'walk off' or otherwise ignore most injuries, Ronon knew there was no ignoring a broken leg, although he wondered if, just maybe... No. He had hauled himself up to sit leaning against the tree which had so painfully broken his fall, but even that movement had set bone grating against bone in a way that had forced involuntary high-pitched moans of agony through his tightly compressed lips. So, walking it off? No; not an option in this case. Option two, then, which was rapidly becoming a reality, as a grenza's grotesque, skeletal form was silhouetted against the sky above him: the traditional 'selling his life dearly'. He had dropped his biggest blade, but he had his blaster and most of the smaller knives. Unfortunately, he had no mobility at all, which really was the key element in bringing his weapons into effective use. He would fire at the eyes; it would blind the creature at least, and maybe if he caught hold of it, it might haul him up enough so that he could blind the other and then force a blade deep into its orbit, a technique which seemed to be the most effective method of disposing of the creatures.

Ronon felt, and it was a shame that he wouldn't get the chance, that he could write a detailed and useful book about effective techniques against the many deadly creatures of the Pegasus Galaxy. Not naturally verbose, Ronon knew his general demeanour didn't necessarily represent the full extent of his fine Satedan education; however, instructional texts, he knew, would be well within his capabilities, covering armed and unarmed combat, the various battle and skirmishing strategies of Wraith, as well as the aforementioned manual of dangerous creatures and ways to kill them. In fact, recalling Harry Potter's school textbook, he would entitle his volume: "Savage beasts and how to slay them".

The grenza approached, stepping almost delicately down the slope, avoiding the loose patches of rock, taking its time, knowing its prey was helpless. Ronon could hear the calls of its partner, climbing the hill behind him, but it was too painful to twist his body round to observe. He held his blaster firmly in his right hand, his clawed forearm red with blood, but nevertheless steady. In his left hand he held one of the smaller knives, its wire-bound grip familiar and comforting.

The creature above him stopped, straightened and flung back its head, releasing a cry of terrifying bloodlust. The one lower down responded and Ronon, having faced what he had thought was certain death on many occasions, knew his reactions well: the anger that unworthy creatures had the power to end his life, the grief that there were so many things he hadn't yet done, and the bleak knowledge that the world would simply carry on without him. His physical reactions to these thoughts were also familiar: the coldness of his face and body except for two burning patches on his cheekbones, the urge to fidget with his knives, the desperate longing to run, to flee, to escape his fate, even when he should remain still to avoid detection or, as in this case, where he simply couldn't move. Above all these things, watching the beast recommence its inexorable progress toward him and hearing the one at his back dislodging loose rocks as it moved, above all his known reactions to abject terror, Ronon knew this: he was still himself. Still Ronon Dex, still a fighter, still a man who, in his inner self, would be strong come what may; some things could not be taken, even when his life could.

_Wait, _he told himself, and it was hard; so hard to wait, motionless, passive, and let them come. Let them come closer to him until he could see the droplets of moisture decorating the tips of the dreadful claws like sinister jewels. But in waiting lay his only, slim chance; that he could blind the one before him, and, snatch hold of some flailing limb to draw himself up and pivot on his sound leg to do the same to the other. He imagined it happening, the whole sequence, so that he would be ready, all the while knowing that he would probably die.

_Wait. Wait._

oOo

Rodney snatched the controls and pushed Gard out of the way, ignoring the man's protests. _No weapons, _he had thought, _No weapons? What kind of a bounty hunter has a ship with no weapons? _And, hard on the heels of his outrage came the thought, _What would Sheppard do?_ Immediately the answer was there; the shrug, the smirk, the 'isn't it obvious?' drawl. _Look around you, McKay!_

Rodney felt his jaw tighten and his eyes narrow in concentration; get the angle right... maximum thrust...

oOo

Ronon aimed with laser-like precision at the creature's eyes and squeezed the trigger. And the grenza disappeared. A blur of gray-white, a furious high-pitched whine and the creature was gone. Ronon didn't react, couldn't react, his adrenaline-flooded system unable to process what had happened. And even as he flinched from the cry of the creature that he knew was behind him, there was another here-and-gone-again whine and the wind, as quick as a bullet's passing, which lifted his ropes of hair and let them fall again.

Then silence; the softly falling rain, the dampness of the rock beneath and the tree behind, his own still-beating heart and hot, heaving breaths. He didn't know how to feel relief. He lived and that was enough. The adrenaline left him and the gray sky merged with the rock and the haze of his exhausted, pain-clouded mind.

oOo

_Sheppard will love this_, thought Rodney. He began reciting the story in his head and pictured John's face, sitting across from him on one of the settles in front of the fire. _The hunt had all gone to hell in a handcart, _he'd say, _And Ronon was missing, so I tracked him by his sub-cue. And he's not moving and he's got two large life-signs coming up on him. _John would be on the edge of his seat, his half-smile reflecting Rodney's excitement. _And we've got no weapons and I can see him in the angle between a tree and the slope, a grenza above and one below and I thought, what would Sheppard do? _And John would grin and say: _Use the ship, McKay! _And then Rodney, with hands swooping like the Skyrunner and then smacking together with a loud crack would tell John about his precision flying that took out the two grenza in fine style. John would grin and say, _Good job, Rodney!_

And yes, the rest of the adventure had been pretty grim; Rodney had relinquished the controls and let Gard land the Skyrunner, precariously, as close to Ronon as he could, because if Ronon wasn't moving there must be a damn good reason why not. The reasons proved to be multiple: an obviously broken leg, several deep, still-bleeding claw marks and the fact that he was unconscious. He came to as Rodney was using his limited supplies, supplemented by a couple of stout branches cut by Gard, to stabilise Ronon's injuries, and he was able to hang onto Rodney and Gard as they supported him into the little ship. The rescue mission was delayed briefly when Ronon grunted, "Dropped my blade. Up there," gesturing to the top of the ridge and Rodney had to retrace Ronon's steps back up the slope and along the top for at least fifty yards before he came across the sword, sticking up out of the muddy ground. Then Ronon wanted to search for Franca, but Rodney insisted that he needed proper medical attention and Gard insisted that his ship was: 'No place for a great muddy, smelly creature, not nohow!" Rodney didn't think Ronon was in the mood for the joke that sprung to mind. He'd tell Sheppard when Ronon was safely back in the infirmary, where he couldn't inflict mortal injury on the teller.

Rodney's radio chattered and he realised Atlantis was hailing Sheppard and receiving no response. Rodney answered, gratefully, informing them of Ronon's condition and agreeing to meet a med team at the Gate. Atlantis signed off.

"Sheppard! Sheppard, respond," Rodney continued to call. "Teyla, come in."

They might both have left their radio sets in their rooms; but Rodney didn't really believe that. He had checked in with John a couple of times when he was fixing the Skyrunner; there had been some puzzling squeaking sounds in the background of Sheppard's transmissions but he had been evasive about what he had found to occupy him. Rodney realised he'd missed at least one check-in, and normally Sheppard would have been chasing him up; immediately his worry ratcheted up another notch.

Carson and his team were waiting at the Gate, and they soon took charge of Ronon. Rodney took the opportunity to speak to Elizabeth.

"I can't raise Sheppard. Or Teyla," he said.

"John's supposed to be staying in today, isn't he? And Teyla's agreeing a contract?"

"Yes, yes, I know it could be nothing, but..."

"No, I agree, Rodney. Have you tried their trackers?"

"Oh, no, I haven't, wait, just wait a minute." Rodney dashed back into the Skyrunner where his laptop was still interfaced with the ship's life-sign detectors. They would be at the pub; they'd left their radios lying about or switched off or something.

Rodney looked at the display. He adjusted the controls. He cleared his suddenly dry throat and clenched his teeth together. He took a deep breath, checked the interface between his laptop and the ship, then checked it again.

"Elizabeth."

"Go ahead, Rodney."

"They're not here. There... there's just... nothing."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

John clung to Teyla and, after a while, he felt her cling to him, with increasing awareness, so that she was bracing her body against the sides of the small space to protect them both, just as he was. They spared themselves some jolts, but John had seen the road through the forest and knew it was rough; the suspension, or lack thereof, on this vehicle was doing nothing to diminish the roughness.

John had remembered the radio in his pocket and reached down to key the comm button a few times, but the button didn't seem to have its usual slight resistance and he suspected it was broken. Similarly, he suspected some of his ribs might be cracked, or at least bruised, and his arm had begun stinging and then throbbing and it felt damp; he thought the stitches had probably torn.

The journey went on: the noise, the bruising motion, the headache-inducing fumes, the biting cold. John had been confused when he was thrown in the vehicle, but he thought he and Teyla were in a space beneath the main cargo area, slung between the rear wheels. His brief view of the exterior of the vehicle had given the impression of a small military tank, armoured and squat, but with a cab more reminiscent of a truck. John didn't recall that they'd come across the internal combustion engine in Pegasus before, if that was what the vehicle had; not that he cared either way, at the moment.

It felt like they were moving more slowly, but that the path was, if anything, even more uneven. The vehicle wallowed, and they were flung around even more. John's sore arm hit the floor and he was hurled onto Teyla and felt his knee hit her; he heard a muffled cry. Then the movement stopped and then the roar of the engine, and they lay, still holding each other, too battered and exhausted even to wonder what would happen next. John heard his own quick, rasping breath but he could tell that Teyla was even now forcing herself to breathe slowly, through her nose, calming and centring herself.

"You armed?" he whispered.

"No. They took my weapons."

"Mine too."

"I am sorry, John."

"Why? What for?"

"I should not have let those men take me. I should not have been so... relaxed."

"We'd all dropped our guard, Teyla. And there were six of them."

"I have taken six before."

"Yeah, well, anyway..."

The panel above them was suddenly pulled off and John closed his eyes against the glaring white light.

"Get up!" He felt a harsh poke in his already sore ribs. John struggled to work himself upright and grasped the edges of the compartment. He was stiff and cold and the light stabbed his eyes; his arms were grabbed and he was pulled out, roughly, barely able to get his legs under him in time. He stumbled into a wall, which felt jagged and uneven and he realised, squinting against the light, that he was in a natural cavern, the floor of which had been crudely levelled to allow better access. And the reason the light was hurting his eyes was that it was bright, electric light, coming from lamps attached by hooks to the walls, with cables slung between. From far off came the puttering drone of a generator.

Teyla was pulled out of the vehicle and John caught her as she was pushed in his direction. She regained her balance and stood on her own, but her face was gray and bruised, her eyes shadowed. John's thoughts turned to escape, but two men held weapons trained on their captives and they had not made the mistake of standing close enough that a swift kick might deal with each of them. _Shame, _thought John, knowing that he and Teyla would have acted simultaneously, a quick meeting of eyes more than enough to communicate their intentions. Instead, their eyes met in mutual acknowledgement that they would wait; an opportunity would come.

oOo

Teyla looked at John. He leant against the wall, hunched over against the pain, she guessed, of cracked ribs, his left arm holding his right. He had a cut on one eyebrow and one cheek was swollen; he looked pale and cold. Teyla guessed that she looked similarly dishevelled. The time for an escape attempt was not yet, and they had to submit to having their hands bound behind them, which would make escape even more difficult.

Teyla was pushed forward and she could hear the men snarling at John, behind her. She hoped he would not react; he was injured enough and trying to fight back would do him no good. The cavern narrowed and branched and Teyla saw that one way led through to another large cave, from which came the sound of talking and the scent of food cooking.

"Not that way!" One of the men pushed Teyla in the other direction; a narrow passage, which led to the foot of a stairway, carved into the rock.

"Wait!" Karron's sharp voice came from behind them. He marched past her and began to climb the stairs, presumably eager to present his prizes to his master, Teyla thought.

It was challenging to climb the steep stairs with her hands bound behind her and her limbs stiff from confinement. Teyla managed to stay upright, but she heard John fall and curse several times as the stairway wound upward in a tight spiral. At the top was a small landing with two guards either side of the door. Karron knocked and entered and the weapons at their backs gave Teyla and John no choice but to follow.

oOo

Lillaina held the cold cloth to the back of her head and winced. Tam, sitting on the chair opposite, looked at her, concern filling his eyes.

"I should've been here, Lil, I'm so sorry!" he said, again.

"Leave it, Tam," she insisted. "How could you know the likes of them would come?"

Tam shook his head, convinced of his guilt. Tirren, sitting on a low stool between them, took a sip of her tea, her teeth rattling slightly on the china. They heard the front door bang open and footsteps hurrying across the floor, accompanied by a rapid patter of increasingly frantic enquiries. Lil's eyes met Tam's, both knowing they had no good news to impart. Rodney burst into the kitchen.

"Where are they? What's happened?" He pointed back toward the bar, his face ghost white. "Th-there's blood! All over! Who...? Was it...?"

"The blood was from a stranger, not your friends," said Tam. Rodney sagged with relief.

"Then, where are they?"

Lil took the cloth away from her head and Rodney seemed to notice her pale face.

"What happened?"

"There were six men," she said. "Strangers, but not unlike some we've seen before in dress and manner. Those that have set off to trade, they say, and then not returned." Lil felt her head throb and her stomach churned. "I heard raised voices. It was just Teyla in there and I took up my heavy iron skillet and went in to see, and... they were attacking her and she was fighting like a wild thing! I tried to help, but something hit me and... I don't remember anything else."

"They took 'em away," whispered Tirren. "In a big, noisy truck. And I couldn't do anything." Tears began to roll down her cheeks again.

"They were alive, though? Weren't they?"

Tirren nodded. "John killed that one." She gestured toward the bar with a shaking hand. "He fought, but the one in charge, he was going to shoot Teyla. They were hurting John and I just ran and hid!"

"You couldn't have done anything," reassured Lil. "You did right to hide."

There was the sound of raised male voices from the bar again and Lil stiffened in fear.

"It's just Major Lorne!" said Rodney.

oOo

They entered a small, square room, which, like the staircase, appeared to be carved from solid rock. It contained a desk and some shelves and, in the far corner, a wooden staircase leading to a closed trapdoor. The cold white light from the bare bulb gave the man behind the desk a sinister, bleached appearance. He looked up and Teyla saw his pinched mouth tighten and his eyes narrow and then abruptly widen when they fell on John. She could not interpret the man's expression.

"Councillor Smeadon, Sir," said Karron, with a self-satisfied air. "I have brought you some guests."

Smeadon said nothing, but rose slowly and moved around the desk to stand in front of John.

"Major Sheppard," he said, neutrally.

"It's Lieutenant Colonel now, actually," John said, his characteristic devil-may-care smirk belied by the tension in his clenched fists.

"A higher rank?" sneered Smeadon. "Your reward for murder."

"I was defending my city. What's your excuse?"

Smeadon merely stared and Teyla was struck by the coldness of the man's eyes; he would not hesitate to kill them should he consider it expedient. He transferred his attention to his military commander.

"I am interested," he said, his voice dangerously restrained, "In fact, I am quite fascinated to hear your reasoning behind this, Karron."

Karron looked taken aback. "Sir, I thought you could use them, to bargain with. Or, their elimination would strike a heavy blow against the Atlanteans."

"Go on."

"Their military commander, their Athosian ally, surely to have them in your power..." Karron floundered. "I thought..."

"Ah, yes, there you have it," Smeadon said gently. "You thought! Never your strong point, thinking." Karron bristled with anger, but Smeadon continued, his voice heavy with threat. "We had to kill that local, Colsen, and that was bad enough, but the Atlanteans will scour the planet to find these two! My strategy to regain power is not to act precipitately, but to wait! To wait until I have built up sufficient resources to ensure my success, and to ensure that the Genii will see me as the best option and re-establish our alliance! And you bring me these two, forcing my hand!"

"I'll kill them, then! Leave the bodies for the grenza!"

"Did you leave anyone alive who knows you took them?"

Karron said nothing.

"Get out of my sight! Take your prisoners! Secure them until I decide what to do with them!"

oOo

Rodney lay in bed, the sole occupant of the room. It wasn't yet light. There was nothing he could do and yet he couldn't go back to sleep.

The atmosphere at the Happy Helg had been sombre the previous night. Food had been laid out, but nobody had felt much like eating, even Rodney, although his plate had been full and then, somehow, it had been empty. The hunt had been a disaster; two people killed and four helgs, and not everybody had returned home by the time the light failed; it was possible that more had died.

Franca had been found rooting out the remaining vegetables in the kitchen garden and Tam was so pleased to see her that he let her carry on eating. Rodney was pleased too, because he knew that Ronon had been worried about his mount. Fren and Maddy had arrived not long after Rodney, concerned that Ronon had not been seen after the hunt had scattered. Maddy had been tight-lipped and stoic, but when she learned what had happened to her friend, she shed tears of mingled relief and sadness that Ronon had been badly hurt.

Lorne and his team had stayed overnight, having returned from a fruitless search by Puddlejumper. Elizabeth had ordered the search called off after nothing had been revealed by technological means; they would wait for the light, follow the forest road toward the mountains and then track their quarry on foot, if necessary.

A loud, screeching cry had Rodney jerking upright, his heart hammering against his ribs. Were they under attack? Had gthe grenza come out of the forest to lay seige to the pub? The cry came again, an urgent, desperate sound and Rodney found himself hurtling down the stairs and at the garden door before he knew what he was doing. He slammed back the bolts, top and bottom and something heavy thudded against the door, howling. And when he pushed the door open, he was engulfed by a wave of wet fur and rasping licks, heavy paws and a variety of sounds, grateful, worried and relieved all at once.

"Boudicca!" Rodney's voice was muffled by fur and he shivered, realising he'd come down in just his t-shirt and boxers and now they were wet and cold.

The priss stepped back and they looked at each other, Rodney kneeling on the floor, his eyes level with hers. He saw her sag of exhaustion, the way she held up first one paw and then another, as if they hurt. And then she stepped forward, put her paws on his thighs and her forehead on his, Athosian style. His vision was filled with her golden eyes and, staring into their unfathomable depths his mind was suddenly alive with thoughts of the forest: the forest as home, as somewhere that was right. Endless miles of forest and then somewhere that was not home, that wasn't right, that was distorted in some way and penetrated by a frightening black void, cold and deep and full of alien things.

Then her weight was gone and the golden eyes regarded him from her usual place on the hearth, her look, one of slight chastisement that the fire was so low and not the blaze she needed to dry her fur properly.

"Yes, yes, the fire," he said vaguely, standing up, feeling disoriented after the strange vision. He poked at the hearth and threw on a few logs, then sat down heavily on the settle.

"You're telepathic," he said, rubbing his face and thinking that he really should get dressed. "And that was... You followed them, didn't you? You know where they are." Rodney thought about what Boudicca had shown him, from a forest animal's point of view. "That place that was wrong for you. That would be the mountains. And the black, scary bit... A cave? Yes, a cave, because that would explain the trackers! Deep underground, no signal and they're alive, aren't they? Teyla and John are alive?"

Boudicca just looked at him, neutrally.

"You don't know, do you? You didn't go in. But they are; they have to be." Rodney slid off the settle onto the floor and put his arms around the damp fur, burying his face. "Thank you," he said. Then he sprang up. "Food, Lorne, rescue party!" he said, snapping his fingers. Then, looking down at himself, "Clothes!"


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"What kind of an outfit is this?" John's voice shook with cold. "They don't even have proper cells!"

Teyla had been listening to her team leader complaining on and off for most of the night. She knew why he was doing it; to distract her, to distract himself. His voice had grown steadily more uneven and croaky and she could tell that he was shivering as much as she was.

"Stalagmites," he said and coughed hoarsely.

"I do not understand, John." Teyla could not stop her teeth from chattering together as she spoke.

"These things they've got us tied to. They're called stalagmites," he rasped.

"Oh."

"They grow up from the floor." He coughed again. "The others that come down from..." He broke off and this time his coughing fit ended in hoarse gasps of pain.

"John, do not talk any more!" ordered Teyla.

After Smeadon's dismissal the previous night they had been hustled back down the stairs and there had been some rancorous discussion about where to put them. Predictably, but foolishly, Teyla thought, John had interjected his thoughts on the matter.

"How about back where you found us?" he had said, making himself a natural target for Karron to release his pent-up anger and humiliation. Teyla had walked and John had been dragged through the troops' living area and through a rough, winding passage, to this cave. The floor and ceiling were a mass of spiky rock formations, beautiful in their own way, Teyla thought. They had each been tied to a separate formation and left in the dark and cold, and although the thick spike she was tied to had looked as soft and smooth as chalk, Teyla had quickly realised that it was made of solid, unyielding rock and, with her arms tied behind her, pulled back tight against the smooth, damp surface, it was impossible to get free.

Teyla tried to breathe slowly and deeply through her shivering; she tried to calm her mind and take herself somewhere far away, somewhere where she was not cold or in pain or fearful for her life and that of her friend. She imagined being warm and comfortable and safe, with her people on Athos, her lost home, or with her new family on Atlantis.

She managed for a short time and then the pain in her strained arms brought her back to reality and she was surrounded by the harsh, frigid blackness once more and John's wheezing breaths.

"We'll get out of this, Teyla," he croaked. "We will. Somehow."

"Yes, John, we will."

oOo

"All ready, Dr McKay." Lorne's voice came out of the chill, pre-dawn darkness.

Rodney nodded sharply, his jaw clenched tight with suppressed panic. Two Jumpers were parked outside the Happy Helg, as well as the little Skyrunner; Elizabeth had sent Sergeant Stackhouse's team as well as Carson, and Gard was eager to come along and earn his bounty.

Boudicca loped up the ramp of Lorne's Jumper and sat, looking back at him. Rodney followed and they were soon airborne. He sat on one of the benches, opposite Carson, who looked at him with sympathy.

"We'll soon have them back, Rodney."

Rodney smiled weakly. Boudicca, unfazed by the closing hatch and confined space, pushed her furry head into Rodney's side and he put his arm around her.

"How's Ronon?" Rodney asked.

Carson rolled his eyes. "Put it this way," he said, "I had to threaten him with restraints to stop him from coming along!"

Rodney gave another half-smile, half-grimace and clenched his fingers in Boudicca's fur.

They flew into the rising dawn until Lorne's voice came from the cockpit.

"There's some kind of camp down there!"

Rodney joined Lorne up the front of the Jumper. The land beneath was more sparsely forested and rose into the gentle waves and rocky outcrops of moorland before, in the distance, high, jagged peaks could be seen, backlit by the violet light of early morning. Below, in a clearing, were a few tents in a circle around a fireplace.

"Bad time of year for camping," said Lorne.

"They could be the group sent to look for Colsen," said Rodney. "They might know something useful. Are we cloaked?"

"Yeah. I'll circle back and decloak; give them some warning."

Lorne pulled the Jumper away, then reapproached, slowly, reducing his altitude. In the dim light, Rodney could see figures begin to emerge from the tents; Lorne landed a short distance away. Rodney was first out of the hatch. He recognised some of the group from the chaotic meeting at the Happy Helg. They remembered him, too, and greeted him effusively with grins and back-slapping, their warm breath creating clouds in the freezing air. Rodney had to restrain his impatience with the social conventions, but the group became silent and attentive when he told them of the disastrous hunt and John and Teyla's kidnapping.

"We've seen nothing of any strange vehicles," said one of the men. "We traced Colsen as far as old Gerta's farm, over the hill there." He gestured back along the rise of moorland. "But this one," he jerked his thumb behind him to where Rodney could see the dilapidated line of an old stone wall. "We went up to the house..."

"It's in a right state!" one of the women interjected, to a general chorus of agreement. "There was a creepy old codger and a couple of young farm hands. None of us recognised them."

Another woman continued. "They said they'd not seen Colsen and wouldn't let us search the land."

"Or put us up for the night, even in the barn!" said the first man.

Rodney looked at Major Lorne, who spoke into his radio to Stackhouse, still circling in the other Jumper.

"Sergeant, check out the nearest farm, see if anything looks suspicious. And scan for any caves nearby."

The campers got their fire blazing and Rodney tried to avoid the great plumes of smoke coming from the damp fuel.

"Come into the Jumper, Rodney. It's freezing out here!" Carson stood with his arms wrapped tightly round him, looking cold and miserable.

"I'm fine. It's not even raining, for a change."

"Where's your friend gone?"

Rodney looked round. "Who, Boudicca? I don't know, maybe she's gone to find something small and furry for breakfast."

Lorne's radio crackled and he listened and then spoke into it, telling the Sergeant to maintain his position.

"Stackhouse saw armed men on patrol, round the farmhouse and near a cave entrance," Lorne told Rodney and Carson.

"So, what do we do?"

"I'd say they'll be expecting us," said Lorne, thoughtfully. "Which means a frontal assault would be a bad idea."

"So, what, we just go and ask for our friends back?" sneered Rodney. "Because I don't think that's going to work!"

"Rodney!" Carson tried to be the voice of reason, but Rodney interrupted.

"How can this possibly end well? Smeadon's so far from trustworthy I'd sooner bargain with a Wraith! And we've got him cornered like a rat in a trap, which means he's going to be even more dangerous!"

"You're right, there," said Gard. Rodney wondered where he'd appeared from and where he'd parked his mushroom. "The man's as wily as they come."

Lorne looked at his watch. "Check-in's in ten minutes. We'll see what Dr Weir has to say."

Dr Weir agreed with Major Lorne in that a full-on assault was too risky for the hostages.

"We need to talk to Councillor Smeadon, at least to play for time," she said. "I'll get in touch with the Manarians."

"You're up, Dr McKay," said Lorne, when Elizabeth had signed off. He gave Rodney a steady, expectant look.

"What, me? I can't negotiate! I don't do that kind of..." He waved his hands dismissively.

"Diplomacy?" suggested Carson.

"No! I can be diplomatic!" Rodney paused. "Well, maybe not, but I mean..." He snapped his fingers. "Artifice! That 'say-one-thing-mean-another' stuff, reading between the lines and so on. It's not me! Especially when people's lives are on the line." He shuffled uncomfortably. "People I er..."

"Care about?" said Carson.

"You just need to find out what he wants," said the Major. "It'll buy us some time. Any major decisions can be left to Dr Weir."

"Alright, I'll go!" blustered Rodney. "I didn't mean that I wouldn't, just that... I'm not very good at that kind of thing."

"You'll be fine," reassured Carson.

oOo

Thoughts of escape had long since receded into the dimness of John's mind. The cold and the pain were all-consuming and their constancy and that of the darkness and silence were all that he knew, all that he was. His thoughts had frozen into the permanence of his pitiful state, so that when, finally, a light approached and there was the sound of boots on rock and short bursts of fearful voices, he remained locked in his torpor.

A sudden spike in the agony in his arms and ribs barely registered and he did not become aware of any change until there was bright light above him and his eyes automatically screwed up against it. His awareness increased when somebody raised him to pour some warm liquid between his lips and then he was set down again and a blanket was draped over him. Suddenly, with the thawing of his body, his brain was able to cope a little more with sensory input and he listened to the hurried, guilty voices.

"I didn't know where else to put 'em, did I?"

He doesn't want 'em dead! What use'd they be then, eh?"

"Smeadon doesn't want 'em here at all and Karron's for the chop if he ain't careful. These two're neither here nor there!"

One of the voices became more threatening.

"You don't have to become their best friend, just keep them this side of freezing to death, yeah?"

There was a reluctant, grunted assent and then silence, except for the more distant murmur of voices and the throb of the generator. John didn't know if he could move. He rolled his head one way, slowly, even this limited motion waking stabs of pain in his neck and shoulders. He saw only a rocky wall through the slits of his eyes, and slowly worked his head in the other direction. Teyla: lying on her side, facing him, within arm's reach if moving his arms hadn't awoken burning pins-and-needles from his fingers upward and wrenching agony in his shoulders.

There was nobody else nearby. They were unbound. This was their best chance of escape. John, concentrating hard, managed to move his arm enough to cover one of Teyla's hands with his own. Then he fell asleep.

oOo

Rodney stood in the middle of the rough farm track. The ground was white with frost and the grass either side stuck up in sculptural spikes. He looked up at the farmhouse, a couple of hundred yards away over the rising ground, and at the open fields either side, broken only by a few stunted trees. He couldn't see any movement, but felt he was being watched, and not just by his own forces, covering him from the treeline.

Rodney unholstered his Beretta, laid it carefully on the ground and stepped back. Gard had looked blankly at him when he'd asked about the local equivalent of a white flag of truce, but it seemed to be generally acknowledged that making some kind of gesture toward disarming would signal the intent to parley. A thin voice came from the direction of the farm buildings.

"What do you want?"

Rodney shouted back, "I want to talk to Smeadon!" and was pleased when his voice didn't squeak or crack.

There was no reply. Rodney looked over his shoulder, but couldn't see his own forces either. He stood, feeling stupid, his hands stuck in his pants pockets for warmth. There was no sign that this was a working farm and Rodney thought that if Smeadon had been trying to blend in, he could have made more effort. There were no helgs for a start, an unthinkable situation for the locals whose livelihoods depended on the creatures and whose culture was centred around them. The farmhouse and outbuildings looked tired and unkempt, with an air of disuse.

Nobody came and Rodney began walking in circles, waving his arms to try to keep warm. Then his eye caught a small movement from the farmhouse; the door was opening. A man emerged. He briefly held his hands out to either side, presumably to show that he was unarmed, but Rodney thought the windows of the farmhouse were probably bristling with hidden weapons. The man came forward and, in the dim, grey light of incipient drizzle, Rodney saw the sharp-featured face of Councillor Smeadon. He didn't remember the man very well; only a vague recollection of his superior air and thinly-veiled sneers, as Teyla negotiated their initial alliance. The Manarians, in general, were a formal, yet friendly people; Smeadon obviously had his own priorities, as evidenced by their betrayal to the Genii. He wore a long, dark coat with fur trim at the collar and cuffs, although as he came closer, Rodney could see the fur was patchy and the coat had a faint, greasy sheen.

He stopped a few yards away, arms folded defensively, chin raised so that he looked down his nose, his small lips pursed with distaste. Rodney tried to keep his expression neutral, but felt his own chin come up and his mouth turn down at the corners.

"I have your people; you know that, don't you?" Smeadon said abruptly. "I will not hesitate to have them killed if I am threatened!"

"Thereby losing your bargaining chip and ensuring your total annihilation," said Rodney, dismissively. "We want them back; what'll it take?" Rodney knew that, in being so blunt, he wasn't fulfilling his brief to play for time, but the man was obviously a cold-hearted killer and he didn't feel he could manage pleasantries. Images of sharp-knived Genii kept appearing in his mind and the fact that this man had given them a way in to Atlantis. The idea of Sheppard and Teyla at Smeadon's mercy made him feel stomach-churningly desperate.

"Safe passage to the Gate and no pursuit," snapped back the Councillor. "Your friends to accompany me until I am safely away. Any hint of treachery and..."

"'You will not hesitate to kill them', yes, you said that already," sneered Rodney. He didn't know how Teyla or Elizabeth retained their equanimity when dealing with such scum. "We want the Colonel and Ms Emmagan released before you go through the Gate."

Smeadon huffed an unpleasant laugh. "Whereupon you would, no doubt, shoot me!" Rodney didn't deny it. "They go through the Gate with me; you may retrieve them when I have had time to Gate to another address."

"Not acceptable," said Rodney.

"And yet, you will agree," said Smeadon, with oily pleasantness. "You have two hours to make the arrangements or your people will die."

"Four! Four hours!"

"Three," Smeadon conceded, and walked away.

oOo

Teyla's mouth was dry and her head ached. Her body felt stiff and sore even while motionless and, although she was no longer surrounded by freezing blackness, she was still chilled. She felt a hand on hers and soft puffs of breath against her face. She opened her eyes. John was lying next to her, his face turned her way; pale, unshaven, cut and bruised with gray shadows beneath his eyes. Teyla slowly and painfully pushed herself up, her arms shaking so much that they would barely support her. She leant her head on her raised knees for a moment, her arms limp at her sides, hands feeling the cold smoothness of rock. She looked up to see that she was in an alcove off the main living cave; a glimpse of light, moving shadows and the scent of cooking came from beyond the irregular arch. There were wooden crates stacked to one side and Teyla's eye fell on two cups of water and a plate holding a few chunks of some kind of meat. She eased herself forward, feeling her shoulders and neck protest violently. She picked up one of the cups and drank thirstily, then ate half of the meat. John still slept.

Teyla began to gently stretch out her rigid, spasming muscles, using patience and her breathing techniques to slowly ease out some of the stiffness. Really, she needed heat, massage and, above all, time to heal, but if she could achieve some measure of mobility, that would have to do for now.

Her efforts were interrupted by the sound of raised voices coming from the main cavern. Suddenly, they became more strident and there was the smack of fist on flesh, followed by scuffling, curses and then the report of a single gunshot. A commanding voice then rang out, berating the troops and threatening dire consequences, after which the sounds relapsed into sullen murmurings.

Quick, rasping breaths came from behind her and Teyla turned to see John, sitting upright, his face contorted into a pained grimace, his arms folded tight around his ribs.

"John! Are you alright?"

"Oh yeah," he wheezed, with more than his ordinary sarcasm. "I'm real good! You?" He began coughing and wincing and Teyla passed him the other cup of water.

"I am well enough, John," she said, passing him the plate of food.

"So, what was all that about?" he asked, reluctantly beginning to eat. "Dissension in the ranks?"

"I believe it must be an issue of trust," said Teyla, thoughtfully. "The soldiers know who we are."

"So, they know someone'll be coming for us," continued John.

"But do they trust their leader? Or do they believe he will simply use us to bargain for his freedom and abandon them?"

John shrugged and then flinched at the pain in his shoulders.

"Try some stretches, John. It will help, and we need to be able to move."

He began rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms, but Teyla could tell from his sharp intakes of breath and quick tightenings around his eyes that the process wasn't pleasant.

"I suppose there's no chance of a hot shower?" John said, standing propped against the crates.

Teyla smiled. "A shower would be wonderful," she said. "But since that is not possible, shall we try to persuade the soldiers to release us in exchange for immunity?"

"I think not!" Karron's voice came from the cave entrance. He stood, weapon trained on them, flanked by two of his men, also armed. "I think you will come with me!"

"And why would we want to leave such pleasant accommodation?" John smirked.

"Because if you are not handed over to Atlantean forces, Smeadon will be killed!" said Karron.

"You are releasing us?" asked Teyla.

Karron smiled. "I'm sorry, you seem to be under the impression that I wish the Councillor to live! On the contrary, I have decided to quit his employ, and as a parting shot, I will be taking you with me!"


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Rodney kicked at the damp, leaf-strewn ground, digging the toe of his boot into the dirt. There was nothing he could do, nothing to fix, no solution that could spring, fully-formed, from the seething mass of his panic-heightened intellectual processes. He felt useless.

Elizabeth and the Manarians had cooked up a plan between them to allow Smeadon to go through the Gate, but to have forces ready to intercept him on each of the planets where he had established alternative covers. When Gard had heard about the plan, he had shaken his head.

"He'll not go to any of those," he said. "He'll have had word that I've been there, sniffing around after him. Unless the Manarians know some places that I didn't find, which is unlikely."

They waited, Lorne's team staking out the farmhouse and Stackhouse and his men covering a perimeter around the cave entrance. Gard had gone and Rodney hoped he wasn't planning his own ambush, which could put John and Teyla's lives in danger. Rodney and Carson waited in the camp, trying to keep the fire going; the locals had already departed. Two of the three hours were up, and Rodney was twitching with nerves, wanting to do something, to provide some kind of viable alternative. He felt a tug at the sleeve of his jacket.

"Not now, Boudicca."

The tug came again, accompanied by a small growl. Rodney looked down into the priss's narrowed eyes, the glare conveying impatience and urgency. She bounded around him and began pushing him with her head and paws.

"I'd say your friend wants to play!" said Carson.

"No, she doesn't. Do you?"

Rodney crouched down so that he was on Boudicca's eye-level. She gave a long, throaty growl, followed by a decisive snarl.

"That's the first sensible thing I've heard in hours," said Rodney. He checked and reholstered his Beretta. "Carson, bring your kit. We're going."

"What? Going where?"

Rodney scrambled to keep up as the priss disappeared into the sparse, scrubby woodland, her tail low, her carriage the slink of a stalking predator. He turned to check that Carson was following, and then plunged between the thorn trees.

oOo

Their hands were not tied, and yet there were no opportunities for escape. Eyes followed John and Teyla as they were directed, at gunpoint, through the cavern; many pairs of eyes and most of them hostile. The soldiers were clustered in small groups of bedrolls, each around a campfire, over which were suspended cooking pots. John looked up at the roof of the cavern: blackened, as if the fires had been in place for quite a while. There were woodpiles here and there. John scanned the bedrolls: a couple of hundred, he estimated. The logistics of this haphazard and ill-supplied operation made John frown. Having signed-off on many re-supply forms for the Atlantis kitchens, he knew very well exactly how much food a force of this size would consume. Where was it all coming from? And the firewood; how many trees had they cut down to keep this area of the cave complex habitable? Something told John the answers to these questions were important.

"Move!" John felt a sharp jab in his back and tried to pick his way through the groups of soldiers more quickly. Where was Karron taking them? There were at least two entrances to the cave complex, John thought; one where they had entered in the armoured vehicle and one where they had been taken to Smeadon. They hadn't actually seen an entrance that way, but the room had given the impression of a cellar. If Karron was betraying his leader, he couldn't take them either way; there would be troops loyal to Smeadon at both entrances, which implied that there was some kind of back door.

They had reached the end of the cavern where the walls narrowed toward a black crevice. John's eyes flicked to Teyla's and he saw his own uncertainty reflected. If Smeadon had struck a bargain for their release, these troops would not want their hostages, their barrier against attack by Atlantean forces, to be spirited away.

The muzzle of a gun pressed into his cheek and Karron's harsh voice whispered threateningly over his shoulder.

"Just try it. Try it and I'll shoot her. Do you think these men care if there's one or two of you?"

"They'd care if there's neither. They'd care that you're a traitor."

The muzzle pressed more harshly. "Try it, then, and see your friend killed."

John allowed himself to be pushed forward into the narrow passageway.

oOo

"Rodney, wait!" Carson struggled up the narrow defile, labouring under the load of his heavy kit. Rodney didn't hear, and Carson was losing sight of him on the overgrown path. It was like a steep tunnel, earth and rock underfoot, overhung by briars and thorn bushes, sometimes narrowing so much that Carson had to force his way through, his arms protecting his face. He could no longer even hear Rodney, and then the way became so overgrown that he had to get down on his hands and knees and crawl, the damp seeping through the knees of his pants. His pack snagged on something; he was stuck.

"Rodney!" Carson tried to push forward but the tangle of briars didn't yield. Then he felt himself unhooked and there was a hand in front of his face. He grasped it and was pulled, feet flailing, out into the open, onto coarse, tussocky grass. Carson heaved himself gratefully up and stood, bent, hands on his knees, puffing.

Fresh, blustery wind pushed at him in gusts, splattering large drops of rain in his face. Banks of low cloud rolled across the gray-brown, undulating landscape; they had emerged onto the high moorland. Carson turned and looked back the way they had come. The slope below was steep, rocky and, in places, sheer. A sweep of hostile vegetation plunged down through overlapping buttresses of land; if he hadn't known it was there, Carson would have struggled to trace any route passable without climbing equipment.

"Rodney, what are we doing up here?" Carson had to shout over the roaring of the wind in his ears.

"Following!" yelled Rodney. Carson was surprised; he knew his friend was not usually enthusiastic when it came to physical activity, and the exhilaration in his face, the pink cheeks and gleaming blue eyes made him look like a stranger. He supposed the release of pent-up frustration and helplessness must have given Rodney a burst of energy.

"Come on!" Rodney grabbed Carson's arm and pulled him along the faint animal trail between the winter-brown heather and stalks of tough grass. A cloud-bank tumbled across in front of them and they could only follow the trail and hope Boudicca was ahead. Carson felt the cold clamminess against his face and settling in his hair. Rodney, only a couple of yards ahead, was a dim, dark gray shape amidst the paler gray surroundings. Then he came into focus and Carson realised he had stopped. He could hear Rodney's panting breath and his own, but nothing else. Rodney spoke, and his words were muffled and dead, damped by the engulfing grayness.

"What's that?"

Carson moved up alongside him. A great mass of darkness reared high above them, looming out of the threatening unknown, seeming to shift in the swirls of obscuring vapour. They stood, unmoving, silent. Then there was an eerie, hollow-sounding call and Carson's stomach dropped and his teeth clenched in fear. Rodney, however, stepped forward and, with a great gust of wind, the rolling grayness was swept away into ragged streamers and Carson could see a huge outcropping of black rock. On a ledge halfway up, stood their guide. She called again, turned, and disappeared into the solid mass.

Rodney looked at Carson. "There must be a way in!" he said. "Boudie's found us a back door!"

oOo

The question of food supply was answered in the first antechamber they reached, where John and Teyla had to push through ranks of hanging carcasses of small sheep-like creatures. The animals represented a significant hunting effort and provided a potential answer to another question, which would interest the locals very much. John wondered if he and Teyla could use the carcasses as swinging weapons or shields, but he was made to walk through first, while Karron held his weapon trained on Teyla, and then he was held at gunpoint while Teyla came through. Karron and the other two men were irritatingly careful, not giving away any advantage to their prisoners, even when the string of electric lights ended and they had to progress by the waving beams of flashlights.

There had been a narrow opening at the rear of the cold storage cave, which was the beginning of a long, uneven passage, where John had to concentrate hard to retain his footing. The floor rose and fell abruptly, the walls sometimes leant at an angle or turned through sharp zig zags as the split in the ancient rock had, aeons ago, shattered through the weakest points of the crystalline structure. John found himself using both hands and feet to make his way, which would have been exhausting even if he were fit and, as it was, his ribs erupted in shocking stabs of pain at every movement, the wound in his arm throbbed and burned, and he could feel sluggish trickles of blood running down toward his wrist. The air had a uniform chill deadness, with no enlivening draught to tell of fresh air ahead. For a while, John had heard only his breathing and the sound of boots against rock, flat and close in the confined space of the passage. Then he had a sense of space about him, the bobbing beams of light flew out into black emptiness and his rasping breath was enlarged and flung back at him by distant surfaces.

He picked his way cautiously forward and then stood, relieved to be properly upright, a hand to either side resting on tall, thin stalagmites. He looked over his shoulder and saw Teyla, outlined in the flashlight beams, her face not visible, but the droop of her shoulders telling of her exhaustion.

Karron's voice came from behind a beam of light.

"Keep going!"

"Which way?" John asked, his croaking voice harsh in the huge void of the cavern. One of the flashlight beams flickered here and there and then settled on a black hole, about a third of the way round the chamber to John's left. They would have to climb to reach it.

He continued, doggedly, weaving his way through the eerie formations, finding a secure grip on their smooth dampness before setting down each foot on the treacherous surface; John was very sure that a twisted ankle would mean abandonment, or worse. He came to the undulating wave of flowstone which led to their exit. If Karron made them both go first here, he and Teyla could swiftly disappear from sight into the blackness of the passage; John decided he'd rather take his chances in the labyrinthine cave network than stay in Karron's gun sights any longer.

"Wait!" A sharp command and Karron sent one of his men up first, who held his weapon steadily trained on John and Teyla as they climbed, their hands rapidly becoming numb in the thin trickle of icy water that came from the passageway. At the top, John thought his exhaustion was causing his ears to hiss, but as they moved along the damp tunnel the hissing grew louder and resolved itself into the rush and tumble of water over rock.

Soon, they stood at the edge of a rolling mass of white water, hurtling down to their left and falling abruptly into the darkness, to drop into the immeasurable depths.

"Go!" barked Karron.

"Go where?" snarled John.

The flashlight probed here and there up the stream.

"Up this side, then across there, where those rocks stick out, then, see, through that crack." Karron didn't sound quite so sure of himself and one of his men muttered something about there being 'much more water' than previously. John studied the route picked out for him and began to climb, interested that Karron was letting him go first. He pulled himself up, cautiously, feeling the freezing drops of spray on his face and hands. He reached the crossing-point and peered into the baffling chiaroscuro of ice-white churning foam and black-shadowed treachery. _This_, John thought, with absolute conviction, _is a bad idea._

oOo

Rodney eyed the fissure in the rock with trepidation. He wondered how narrow the passage beyond would be and if Boudicca had taken into account the size of her companions. It was remotely possible that she had taken into account the crushing dread of at least one of her friends when faced with confined spaces, telepathy being what it was, but, Rodney supposed, her attitude was almost certainly one of 'beggars can't be choosers', 'any port in a storm', or at least the priss equivalent of such sayings.

"Rodney!" A querulous voice came from below the ledge and Rodney crouched down to help Carson up the rest of the way.

"We're going in there?" Carson asked, regarding the unprepossessing cleft with dismay.

Rodney replied with a smile that was supposed to be encouraging but almost certainly wasn't. Boudicca growled impatiently from beyond the threshold. Carson's eyes flicked around the ledge they were standing on and up to the overhang above their heads. He took off his pack and dumped it on the ground.

"I can't do this on my own, Carson!" Rodney felt panic stirring at the thought of tight walls of rock closing in on him.

"You won't have to," said Carson. "I'm just getting a few items."

Rodney crouched down next to him and watched as Carson withdrew from his pack a reel of fine thread, a pencil and a tin. He opened the tin and took out a fish hook.

"Why do you carry fish hooks round with you?" asked Rodney, momentarily diverted from their situation.

"I like fishing!" Carson replied, defensively. "And they come in handy sometimes!" He threaded the fishhook onto the line, tied it tightly and then, selecting a hairline crack in the rock, forced the hook in and hammered it home with a loose shard. Then he stuck the pencil throught the fishing line reel and waved it at Rodney.

"Now we won't get lost!" he said.

"Okay, good plan," Rodney acknowledged, grudgingly. "Flashlight?" He held up his own.

"Oh, yes, here it is." Carson shouldered his pack and they followed Boudicca into the darkness.

oOo

Carson did not assign to himself any heroic attributes whatsoever. A spool of thread unwound in his hand and, yes, he did stride forward relatively boldly into the darkness; and yet he didn't feel in the slightest like Theseus in the labyrinth, going to do battle with the fierce minotaur. He felt like an out-of-his-depth doctor, reluctantly, but determinedly doing what he had to do to rescue his good friends and colleagues.

"How much line have you got on that, Carson?" Rodney's voice sounded high and tense.

"I'm not sure. Over a thousand yards, anyway."

"Oh. Okay."

"Will that be enough?"

"I have no idea!" Rodney stopped and turned, his flashlight flaring in Carson's eyes. "I don't know where we are in relation to the inhabited parts of the caves, I don't know how far we have to go or how narrow it'll get or if..."

"Rodney!" Carson interrupted. "Rodney, breathe!"

"Yes, breathe! Breathing's good! In and out and in again and so on!"

"Breathe, don't talk!"

Carson felt the furry bulk of the priss wind her way in between them.

"We'll be fine, Rodney. Boudicca knows what she's doing."

"Yes, yes of course she does." Carson heard his friend take another deep breath and let it out slowly. "Right. So. Not going to panic any more. Onward and downward!"

"Right you are, Rodney!"

oOo

John had decided to crawl, hand and foot, over the protruding rocks, which meant he was continuously doused in the icy water, but gave him more stability and more of a chance of seeing his way in the scattered flashlight beams which reflected confusingly off the agitated foam. The continuous roaring, the dancing spots of light, the penetrating, bone-deep chill, the pain of his injuries: everything seemed to be against John, as if an implacable will were pitted against his strength. He kept going, gritting his teeth, squinting into the darkness to pick his next hand-hold, bracing himself against the force of the flow. The final stretch was wide and John had to perch, shivering on a point of rock and leap wildly before he lost his balance; he landed, awkwardly, but safely away from the torrent of water and pulled himself up to sit, curled up, his arms around his knees, trembling with cold.

John watched Karron cross next, hoping he'd fall and be swept away. He thought for a moment that his wish had been granted, when Karron fell short on the final leap; for several seconds he clung with both arms to a rock, his legs swinging away downstream, but then he found purchase with one foot and pushed himself up and out of the water. Shuddering with cold, he nevertheless positioned himself to cover John with his gun and watched as the first of his men crossed.

The man stood at the edge of the tumult of water, uncertainty in his twitching fingers and flicked glances toward his colleague.

"Get on with it!" Karron ordered.

He stepped out onto the rocks, made it about halfway and then froze, irresolute, unable to decide on his next foothold. The other soldier called out advice and John saw Teyla look in his direction, wondering if a chance to fight back had arrived. The step was taken; a poor choice and the man's foot came down on the edge of an unbalanced rock, there was a splash and he was gone, swept instantly away to disappear into the darkness. The other man's weapon and flashlight wavered, John saw Teyla tense, ready to attack, Karron grasped John's collar, hauled him close and he felt the bite of the muzzle in the side of his neck. Teyla sank back down.

"Your turn! Now!" Karron shouted at his remaining subordinate.

The man shook his head. "I... I can't! I can't do that!"

"Yes, you can! I order you to move!"

The man backed away, shaking his head. "No, no, I'm going back!" He turned away from the river and scrambled back into the passage, his light dimming and finally disappearing as he retreated. John felt Karron thrust him away to a safe distance as he moved back, whipping his flashlight back out of his pocket. Karron shone its beam out over the water, keeping his eyes and weapon fixed on John. The light wavered and, although John couldn't see, he guessed the gun was shaking too.

"Cross!" Karron's voice was higher, showing his strain. "Now!"

Teyla stood at the water's edge. John saw her breathe slowly in and out and he knew she was calming herself, allowing her senses to attune to the task ahead of her. Karron called out again, his voice thin and desperate. Teyla ignored him. When she began to cross, it was as if she were creating a new dance, her movements as fluid and as powerful as the uncaring, unceasing flow beneath her. She remained upright and sprang lightly from point to point with perfect poise, defying the power of the water with her strength and grace. She landed, stumbled and sagged and John caught her arm. In the thin wavering light he saw the gleam in her eyes; exhausted, yet sure and true, still Teyla no matter what ordeals she had to endure.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Elizabeth folded her arms in an effort to appear calm and in control, rather than fidgety and on the verge of panic. She felt her eyebrows contract and her mouth tighten and thin and she made a determined attempt to smooth her features back into her diplomat's bland competence.

"You're sure there's been no activity, either at the farm or the cave."

"Nothing, Dr Weir. It's a clear half hour after the deadline, but nothing's happening." came Lorne's voice over the comms. "And Dr McKay and Dr Beckett..."

"Yes?" Elizabeth noticed her voice drop into the lower register that always seemed natural when exercising determined restraint. She wondered what predicament the two men had got themselves into and who had been the instigator; her money was on Rodney.

"We left them at the camp, but they're not there now."

"Any signs of a struggle?"

"No, Ma'am! And their packs are gone."

Elizabeth felt tension creep into her expression once more. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then opened them again.

"Major, do you think you can take the farmhouse?"

"I think so. We can use a cloaked Jumper, throw a couple of flash-bangs through the windows and then go in."

"I'll leave the details up to you. Report back in one hour. Atlantis out."

oOo

Teyla knew the time was near and she could feel that John knew it too. Karron still maintained a distance, still held his weapon trained on them, still gestured them to go first with sharp jerks of his flashlight, but he was on the edge of panic. They stumbled forward, barely able to see in the fleeting flickers of light, moving by touch and instinct, hands feeling for walls either side and obstacles ahead. Then, once again, the walls flared out and the sound of their laboured breath and weary, uneven progress whispered off into a void. First John and then Teyla let themselves down a short drop onto a smooth, gritty surface and Karron's flashlight shone out over the mirror-like surface of a lake.

"Move away!" Karron stuttered, nervously. "Right away! And turn around!"

Teyla trod slowly down the gentle slope to the water's edge, John at her side, his arms tight around his body, his breath harsh and shuddering. They needed to get out and get warm. Teyla had kept going through force of will and repeated bursts of adrenaline, but she knew she could not carry on much longer and John was clearly hypothermic. Nevertheless, when their chance came, they both needed to be able to react.

The sound of a heavy fall and the wild bouncing of the light announced Karron's landing.

"Stay there!" His voice was even more unsteady and Teyla could tell the effects of his soaking in the icy water were taking their toll. The light dimmed suddenly and jolted as Karron tried to shake some more life into its depleted power cells. Teyla looked at John and met his eye; the light failed.

She dived to one side and hoped John had dived the other way as shots rang out and, in the split-second flashes that accompanied each report, Teyla turned and marked Karron's position. He stopped firing and she could hear him heaving great, sobbing breaths.

"Don't move!" There was desperation and near madness in his broken cry. "I know you're there!" He fired again, wildly and the gritty surface crunched as he took a few hasty steps along the shore.

Teyla hoped John would stay still and trust her; he could not move with anything like her stealth on a good day, and this had not been a good day for John Sheppard. She closed her eyes, which made no difference to the light levels but helped Teyla to focus her other senses. Softly, slowly, she turned and, raising one foot, brought it down ahead of her, so, so gently that there was barely a whisper of sound. In her mind, Teyla prepared; there would be no mercy for this man who was prepared to hurt and kill, to kidnap and conspire, to lead others into darkness and risk, and not count the cost. It was easy to be fooled into thinking that Teyla's calm demeanor and considered actions meant that she could not be coldly, brutally pragmatic if the need arose; the need had arisen and Teyla intended to kill rather than subdue. Their own lives were in danger and a murderous prisoner would exacerbate their problems; therefore he would die.

"Where are you?" The gun fired again. Teyla moved in a wide arc, picturing the underground shore in her mind, aware of the place where the rock sloped up toward the passage. She felt the stir of the air around her as Karron pivoted and knew his weapon was pointed her way. She dived at his feet as he fired, then leapt up suddenly, grasped his wrist and twisted so that he dropped the weapon with a shriek of pain. Then, in a long-practised move, which she had used on both John and Ronon many times, but now used in deadly earnest, she forced Karron's arm up behind his back, the angle straining the joints near to dislocation. Her other arm gripped the man's head and, within a split second, Teyla's years of focussed training coalesced; a moment of perfect clarity brought total awareness of her body in relation to his, of the forces she would exert and the opposition he would bring to bear. She broke his neck.

She held her position for a long breath in and out and then, still moving with cold economy, Teyla laid the body down, in the dark, far underground, where he would stay. She knelt, her head bowed, the weight of her actions heavy on her shoulders. She did not kill without thought, without conscience. Her ending of this life would not torment her, and yet there was sadness and solemnity in the ending as there was at the finish of any living thing. But he had died and not John and not herself.

"Teyla?" John's voice came out of the darkness, as he had come years ago in the darkness before dawn, and since then had been a steady beacon of resistance against all the evil in the galaxy.

"John," she said and rose and trod carefully toward him, hearing him struggle toward her.

"You killed him?"

"Yes."

They met in the darkness and held each other and sank down to the ground. Teyla felt John shaking and realised she was shaking too, with cold and fear and adrenaline.

"Did you see a way out of here?"

"No."

They clung together more tightly. The blackness was complete. They had no idea which way to go.

oOo

"I think we should go back!" Carson had stopped and Rodney stopped too, without turning round. He looked down at his boots and then ahead, to see Boudicca's eyes, glowing with reflected light.

"Rodney, we don't even know this is the right way!"

Rodney turned round. He could see Carson's flashlight, aimed at the rocky floor, and points of light here and there on drips of water running down the walls.

"We're not going back," he said flatly.

"Rodney..."

"Boudicca knows what she's doing! I trust her."

"Look!" Carson shone his light onto his reel of fishing line. "I'll carry on for now, but when this runs out, we're going back."

Rodney glared, but simply turned and carried on, into the darkness. They picked their way over the uneven floor, sometimes slowing to a literal crawl, sometimes nearly jogging where the strata in the rock gave a flat surface. Hurrying along, Rodney nearly tripped over Boudicca, who had stopped, stock still in the middle of the passage. She stood, one front paw poised, her tail stuck straight up, her fur bushed out as if standing on end.

"What's up with her?" whispered Carson.

Boudicca growled uncertainly, then let out a high-pitched _yip_ and sped away into the darkness.

"Boudicca! Wait!" Rodney set off in pursuit, but soon had to slow down as the passage twisted and turned and the floor became jagged and difficult to negotiate once more. Then there was the reverberating crack of gunfire coming again and again; silence, then another shot, a pause and then another. Rodney scrambled forward, deaf to Carson's pleas to wait.

oOo

Karron was dead but they were lost and alone in the darkness; and cold, so very cold. John knew they had to move, follow the edge of the cavern by touch, find a way out, maybe a breeze that would tell them which way to go, but somehow the will to move wasn't enough. He sagged against Teyla and felt her peel off his soaking wet fleece and t-shirt and try to put her own jacket on him, then give up and drape it round his shoulders when it wouldn't fit. He could hear her make encouraging sounds, but the words were blurred and didn't make sense.

Then there was warmth; warmth and softness and something wrapping round him. Something that moved and breathed and made sounds that didn't need to make sense; sounds of comfort and worry and reassurance. He heard Teyla laughing, a laugh that was nearly a sob and the sound made him pull himself up and open his eyes. At first it made no difference; there was still the warm softness around him and a gentle, padded touch to his shoulder, but he could see nothing. Then he blinked, because there were dancing spots of light in front of his eyes. The spots grew and flared out and he could see.

Teyla sat by him, her profile in shadow, light reflecting off lines of dampness on her cheeks. And Boudicca was draped over and round them both, engulfing them in as much of her sinuous body as she could. Then flashlight beams were bouncing back and forth, shining in his eyes, and he could hear voices: the voices of his friends.

oOo

Carson had nearly fallen in the lake. He had scrambled after Rodney, unbalanced by his pack, legs trembling with fatigue, and he had thought the flat surface ahead of him was a sheet of rock, until his flashlight illuminated a slight ripple. He stopped himself, just in time, whipped the beam left, then right, spotting Rodney's bobbing light in that direction. He set off once more in pursuit, gladly reached a narrow, pebbly strip and followed it as it broadened out, hurrying as Rodney let out a shout of recognition.

They had found them; Teyla and John, huddled together on the underground shore, alone, with no light to guide them. Apparently, they had broken free from their captors, and there was an interesting story to tell if the body lying further up the slope was any indication. Carson shuddered at the thought of what would have happened to them if Rodney hadn't insisted on following his animal friend. But speculation was a waste of time; they had found the Colonel and Teyla, and neither of them in the best of shape.

Carson wasted no time in assessing their injuries, while Rodney broke out his canteen and supply of power bars as well as the thin survival blankets. Both the Colonel and Teyla were obviously exhausted and covered in multiple cuts and bruises. Carson was worried about John's ribs, but thought they were probably cracked rather than broken; broken ribs could have been fatal, under these conditions and with a difficult route to navigate to the surface. Carson rebandaged John's arm and then they had a general redistribution of clothes so that everyone had at least two layers. He had wrung out John's pants and then swapped with him, so that John could wear the dry ones, which left Carson with a tight waistband and cold, clammy legs; he didn't care.

oOo

"Come on, Sheppard, just a bit further, keep going!" Rodney felt he'd been saying the same thing for hours and that his words had long since stopped having any meaning for either himself or John. His friend's weight was heavy on his shoulder and their progress was painfully, creepingly slow: slow where the going was easy, and where the floor jumped up and down in jagged steps and leaps, they were almost brought to a standstill. Rodney had even resorted to reaching down and lifting John's booted foot onto the next step a couple of times.

"Time for a rest!" Rodney said, bending his knees stiffly and setting John down to lean against the wall. He crouched down and shone his flashlight on John's face, at an angle, so the light wasn't in his eyes. Cuts stood out livid against his paper-white skin and he sagged, limp and boneless against the clammy rock. His eyelids flickered slightly.

"Teyla?"

"Carson's taken Teyla on ahead. He's going to come back and help."

"'kay." John's eyes closed again and Rodney thought he was asleep or unconscious, until he murmured, "Rodney?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks." And then John really was unconscious and Rodney, not knowing what else to do, pulled his friend close and wrapped the survival blanket round both of them.

oOo

"All clear, Sir!"

The farmhouse was empty. Major Lorne had planned his attack carefully, but, approaching in a cloaked Jumper, his scan with the LSD had revealed no life signs to be present. The rooms were empty not only of life, but of furniture or any indication that the house had recently been inhabited. The fireplaces were lifeless and the ash cold. Yet there had been soldiers here, patrolling recently; and Smeadon had come through the front door, spoken to Dr McKay and neither he nor anyone else had slipped past Lorne's vigilance since then.

"Sir!"

Sergeant Coughlin was in the small back room. Lorne joined him and studied the trapdoor in the corner.

"Open it, Coughlin." Lorne kept his weapon trained on the hatch, while the Sergeant swung it up to rest on the wall. A wooden staircase led down into darkness. Lorne took his flashlight, crouched down and flicked it round the cellar that was revealed. He could see a desk, some shelving and another door in the far wall. Gesturing to Sergeant Coughlin to follow, Lorne trod carefully down the stairs, his weapon ready. He crossed the room and stood, listening; he heard nothing. The Major stood with his back to the wall, his weapon ready, and nodded at Coughlin, who flung open the door suddenly. They burst out onto a stone landing, lit by an electric lamp hung on the wall. A steep, narrow staircase, carved into the rock, led downward.

It began to make sense to Lorne. The farmhouse and the cave system were linked and Smeadon, his troops and presumably their hostages, were below. But why had they abandoned the farmhouse? And why hadn't Smeadon taken the opportunity to escape, using his hostages to reach the Gate? A garbled burst came from his radio and he gestured Coughlin back into the cellar room and up the stairs, where the signal was clear.

He heard Dr Beckett's voice, requesting a Jumper. Apparently, the Colonel and Teyla had from escaped their imprisonment in the caves below.

oOo

Rodney didn't realise he'd been dozing until a tug on the line, which he'd kept wrapped round his fingers, woke him. He'd turned the flashlight off to save the batteries, but could see a dim reflection of light on the dripping walls; Carson was coming.

Rodney switched on his own flashlight and the doctor emerged from the darkness, dirty and puffing with exertion, his expression reflecting his single-minded determination to do his duty. His eyes fell on Rodney and John and he quickened his awkward scramble.

"I couldn't get him any further on my own!" said Rodney.

"Let's see what we can do together, then," said Carson, checking John's pulse.

"He'll be okay, won't he?"

"Yes, but we need to get him to the surface, quickly. I've called for a Jumper."

They couldn't move quickly and, for Rodney, the journey felt like it went on interminably. Rodney carried John by reaching under his armpits, while Carson, facing the front, grasped John under his knees. It would have been difficult on level ground in the daylight, but in the darkness, with their flashlights stuck awkwardly in pockets and the rough floor of the passage, it was exhausting and dangerous.

They had both fallen several times and couldn't tell whether they'd injured John further; Rodney knew both of his knees were bleeding. John began to stir and struggle and they had to put him down. Then there were voices up ahead and lights and, to Rodney's relief, Sergeant Stackhouse's team were there, with a stretcher, and suddenly the ordeal was over. Rodney found himself swiftly helped along and out into the gray light, squinting up his eyes against the brightness.

There was bustle and activity and shouted orders, and after so long underground in the dark and silence, and so long on the verge of panic, Rodney found himself suddenly feeling shaky. He sank down in a heap on the rocky ledge and put his hands over his face, wondering if he could stop himself crying with relief and exhaustion and thinking maybe he should just give in and let it happen. Then he was engulfed in brown fur and he sank his face into Boudicca's comforting softness gratefully; and if a few tears were shed into the fluffy depths, who would know?


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Time had passed; day-long, night-long, in a blur of cold and heat, discomfort and distress. Voices spoke to him, but he didn't respond, because he had been in this situation before, hurt and helpless, and he found the best approach was to ignore it and do his best to pretend it was happening to someone else.

The sensations of discomfort and sometimes pain resolved themselves into the routines and rhythms of the Atlantis infirmary and John knew he would soon have to make some kind of effort to show that his awareness had returned. But he was warm and relaxed, no doubt due, in part, to something that he should make the most of, while it made its covert way into his veins. He drifted.

It wasn't until an intriguing, repetitive sound pricked at John's consciousness that he finally worked up the enthusiasm to pay attention to his surroundings. He still didn't open his eyes, however; that would be giving too much away. The sound was an alternating tap-thud, tap-thud, approaching and then receding unevenly. It stopped and John heard Ronon's voice.

"See? Can I go?"

John almost smiled, but managed to remain impassive, waiting to see what would happen.

"Ronon, it's not a question of whether you _can _manage, but whether you _should!" _Carson: entertainingly exasperated, as usual. This could be good. "You'll tear your stitches! I want you to use the wheelchair!"

"Wheelchair's stupid."

"Then you can stay right here until I decide you're healed enough to use the crutches!"

"You gonna stop me?"

There was a slight pause and then Carson's voice took on a smug note, as if he had found the perfect clincher to his argument. "No! He is!"

There was another, longer pause. John frowned, feeling the determined regard of two pairs of eyes. He opened his, tentatively; Carson, arms folded, watched him with one eyebrow raised and Ronon, leaning on crutches, a mischievous grin lurking under the fall of dreadlocks. It crossed John's mind that the argument had been staged, in order to get him to return to the waking world.

"Hey, Carson... Chewie?" said John, innocently, annoyed that his voice was so weak and croaky. "What's going on?" He regarded Ronon's casted leg and bandaged arm in puzzlement.

"Mutiny," said Carson, bluntly. "The flagrant disobeying of doctor's orders."

"Stupid orders," rumbled Ronon.

"C'mon, buddy. Beckett knows what he's talking about."

"You gonna do what he says?"

"Well, yeah, of course I am!" said John, then mumbled, "mostly," under his breath, which spoiled the effect. "What happened to you?"

Ronon shrugged, as far as he was able, around the crutches. "Hunt went bad, coupla grenza cornered me." John knew there was far more to the story than Ronon's typically minimalist report, but it could wait.

Carson called over the Marine who had been lurking at a safe distance with the hated wheelchair, and Ronon subsided into it, grumbling, his casted leg supported, and was wheeled away. He gave John a grinning thumbs up over his shoulder as he went, to which John responded with a half-smile and a casual flick of his fingers, knowing that he would be unlikely to escape from under Carson's eye any time soon. The doctor began checking John's various IVs and blood pressure and whatever else it was doctors did when they wanted you to know that you were in disgrace for ending up on their hands once again.

"I did try to stay in and rest, Carson," said John, not sure why he was feeling guilty.

"I know you did, Colonel. Teyla told me what happened."

"Hey, is Teyla okay? How long have I been here? And what time is it?" John's throat and chest began to object to his rush of urgent questions, making him cough, which resulted in savage, stabbing reminders of his injured ribs.

"Slowly, John," said Carson, helping him drink some water and indicating a blanket-shrouded lump in one of the other beds. "Teyla's going to be fine. She was exhausted and she's pretty stiff from all the bruising and cuts, but she'll soon recover." He looked at his watch. "We brought you both back at about ten o'clock, Atlantis time, yesterday morning, and it's just coming up to two pm now."

"And Teyla's still asleep?" John asked, worriedly.

"No! She was up and about this morning," said Carson. "It's you that's been enjoying 'the honey-heavy dew of slumber' for so long."

John frowned, feeling the conversation was getting away from him. He rubbed his gritty eyes, wincing at the damage he encountered, and thought back to the long, dark journey through the cave system. He couldn't recall making it to the surface.

"Rodney! He was there, in the caves, and he hates places like that!"

"Yes, well, he was, let's say, a bit 'spooked', but he's fine too. Colonel, don't you want to know the details of your condition?"

"Not really," replied John, with a grimace. "I guess it could probably be summed up as 'crappy'."

"An apt enough description," agreed Carson. "Your main problem was hypothermia, and then there are the four cracked ribs, and that chest infection that wasn't too bad has got a pretty good grip now. Last night, I thought you were in for a bout of pneumonia, but we've headed that one off. And I had to restitch your arm. And then there's all the other minor injuries."

"Oh," said John. "I think I'll upgrade to 'real crappy', then."

"I'll write that on your chart, Colonel."

oOo

So familiar was the view that Elizabeth was sure she could have drawn it from memory. If she had thought to bring some good-quality pastels to the Pegasus Galaxy, the portrait could have graced her office wall: 'John Sheppard in the infirmary, from a visitor's chair'. Because nobody was looking, Elizabeth allowed herself a small smirk and, as if in response to her impish expression, her military commander's eyes opened and certainly caught the tail-end of the smirk before it morphed into a more straightforward smile. His brows drew together, suspiciously.

"Hello, John," she said.

"Hey, 'Lizbeth," he said, clumsily, and yawned. "Sorry. Still tired."

"I'm not surprised. You've been through a lot."

"Uh, yeah, um... sorry things didn't go too well."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, John!" Elizabeth reassured him. "Teyla negotiated a good deal and you all fostered good relations with the locals; even the youngest of them, apparently." Elizabeth felt the smirk grow on her lips again and enjoyed John's characteristic embarrassment, expressed by his not knowing what to do with his hands and avoiding her gaze.

"Huh, yeah, well, just doing my bit."

"And the Manarians are pretty happy with us, even though Smeadon slipped through the net, somehow."

John's head shot up and suddenly his expression was all military business, his hazel eyes dark and penetrating.

"Smeadon's gone?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and clasped her hands together.

"Major Lorne took the farmhouse and found it empty," she explained. "There was a way down into the caves through a kind of cellar office."

John nodded. "Yeah, that's where we had a little chat."

"Well, shortly after Lorne discovered that, Smeadon's troops began to surrender, coming out from the cave entrance and up through the cellar. The second-in-command, Karron, you'd dealt with..."

"Teyla offed him," John interrupted, absently.

Elizabeth glanced across at Teyla, serenely sipping tea while reading a paperback; it was difficult to reconcile the two sides of her personality.

"Smeadon had disappeared and his men just gave up," Elizabeth continued.

"But how...?"

"Ah, that's when they found another escape route - a hatch, beneath his desk. There was a tunnel that led out into the woodland."

"Sneaky old... Did he go through the Gate?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "That's a definite 'no'. The Manarians took charge of Smeadon's men and they've been keeping a close watch on the Gate since then."

"So he's still there." John stared off into the distance for a moment, then his eyes returned to Elizabeth's. "D'you talk to Gard?"

"The bounty hunter? Yes, briefly. He doesn't give much away, does he?"

"Ha, no, he can be pretty... succinct." John's lips twitched.

"He said he's staying. For Smeadon. To 'wait him out'."

"Yup, Gard's pretty good at waiting."

They were both silent. Elizabeth wondered if she should go; John still looked tired and his eyes narrowed sharply each time he moved, which she knew was a sign that he was in pain but trying to convince himself and others that all was 'good' in John Sheppard's world.

"Shall I get Carson?"

John's head, which had drooped onto his chest, jerked up again, eliciting another eye-squinch, followed by a worried expression, as if he'd inadvertently let slip how he was really feeling. _Heaven forbid, _thought Elizabeth, mentally rolling her eyes.

"No," he said. "Did Teyla tell anyone about the cold storage cave?"

_Deliberately changing the subject_. "Yes, she did. Lorne and Stackhouse had their men carry all the carcasses out. They took them in a Jumper and pitched them out further into the mountains."

"Nice job," he said, sarcastically. "Hope they cleaned the Jumper out properly."

"I talked to the landlord... Tam? And others." Elizabeth smiled. "You all made quite an impression, you know. Major Lorne was trying to report and I kept hearing people in the background, wanting to send you messages, so, in the end, Lorne gave up and passed the radio round."

"They're a great bunch. What'd they say?"

"Well, Tam agreed that the grenza had probably come down from the mountains because Smeadon's men had been hunting their natural prey in such large numbers; so, with any luck, that situation will resolve itself."

John nodded, satisfied, closed his eyes and let his head rest on the pillow.

"The landlord's wife wants you all to come back soon, and a very firm-sounding woman insisted that you attend their Midwinter festival; she said Ellet wants you to come."

"Grella," murmured John.

"A little girl said she needs Ronon, and something about going trapping?"

"Maddy," he said drowsily.

"And then there was a kind of growl, which made Rodney smile."

"Boudicca."

"And after that Lorne took the radio back because somebody was going to give it to Franca to say hello. Who's Franca?"

"She's a helg." John yawned. "Lorne was right; she'd probably have eaten it." John's head turned away and his breathing deepened. Elizabeth thought he was asleep, but he spoke again.

"Can we go? To the festival?"

"In the interests of diplomatic relations?" she asked, amused.

"Yeah, that," John replied, thinking about the beer.

"We'll see."

oOo

Rodney had wanted to walk, but had kept his thoughts to himself, it being so unusual that he would seek to engage in any undue exertion, particularly in harsh weather conditions, that his colleagues were bound to question his reasons. It had snowed; and Rodney had craved the simple pleasure of stepping through the Gate into a Narnia-like scene of bare trees and large, gently-falling flakes. The event horizon would set the scene sparkling, the soft blanket would muffle the sound of their voices and Rodney thought that wading through the drifts, feeling the cold numbing his face and toes, would increase his anticipation of their arrival at the Happy Helg, where fires would be roaring and an array of tasty, hot treats would be ready for consumption. It had always been his favourite part of the Narnia stories and, as a child, he had envied Lucy, invited to a cosy tea by a friendly faun; besides which, the complexity of the dances in the stories, where woodland folk wove in and out in intricate patterns and threw snowballs at precisely timed intervals, argued a natural instinct for the beauty of math. Rodney would have had Tumnus extolling the delights of fractals before the butter had melted on the toast.

But they came through the Gate in a Jumper, and were landing on the snow outside the Happy Helg within five minutes, and Rodney had to acknowledge the necessity of their easy transport. Even Ronon, no matter how casually he hurtled along the hallways of Atlantis on his crutches, could hardly have managed in deep snow. John, still occasionally coughing and wheezing, and unbalanced, with one arm in a sling, looked as though the first snowdrift would defeat him, and Rodney knew John's ribs were still sufficiently painful to leave him vacillating between a choice of taking painkillers or being able to indulge in tankards of the local brew. Even Teyla moved with less than her usual grace, and the bruises on her face could still be seen, faintly.

Carson had decided to accompany them, ostensibly to see that they didn't incur any more foolish injuries, but Rodney thought he was coming at least as much for the log fires and conjured memories of distant Burns nights, that the rumoured prospect of helg puddings had evoked. Rodney had tasted real Scottish haggis, and sincerely and greedily hoped that helg puddings were a close approximation.

Elizabeth had come too, and although she dressed-up her justification in fancy 'furthering the interests of the expedition'-type phrases, as far as Rodney was concerned, she might just as well have admitted that she was there to 'eat, drink and be merry'. Everyone knew she deserved a break, anyway.

The Jumper hatch descended and Tam was there, barely recognisable in a fur hat and coat, a huge mallet swinging from one hand. Behind him, another man was tying a rope to the top of a tall stake. Friendly greetings were exchanged and John introduced Elizabeth, but Rodney's attention was elsewhere, scanning the thickets of snow-edged trees and the paths that led to the barn and round to the kitchen garden.

"We're just marking out the course," Tam was saying, "for the helg racing, later."

Rodney caught Ronon and John's exchange of interested glances and Carson's muttered prohibition, which would no doubt become strident, if necessary. Then the world tilted, as something knocked Rodney flat into the snow, and his sky became a mass of black and brown with two yellow suns burning down upon him.

"Hello, Boudicca," whispered Rodney, with the limited lung capacity remaining to him. "You're quite heavy. Could you, maybe..."

The weight disappeared and Rodney pushed himself up, shaking snow out of his hood, to see Bouddica carefully inspecting Ronon, John and Teyla, her sniffs and pats respectful of their injuries. The priss also wound herself twice round Carson, in greeting, but deliberately ignored Elizabeth, sitting down in the snow, facing directly away from her, in statuesque pose, furry tail curled around fluffy toes.

"Oh," said Elizabeth, with a disappointed smile. "I don't think she likes me."

"No, no," Rodney hastened to reassure her. "Being ignored is a good thing. Wait and see."

Lillaina then emerged from the main door and ushered them inside, rebuking Tam for not having brought their guests in straight away.

oOo

The pub was just the same, John thought, except the fire was piled higher than ever with logs, against the winter cold, and the room was a little brighter, the white reflected snow-glare finding its way through the low window.

"Well, it is good to have you all back!" said Lillaina, gesturing to Tam to collect their heavy winter coats and helping John with his, having spotted his one-armed predicament. "And more or less whole and healthy!" She cast John a shrewd glance as he slid stiffly out of his coat and he felt his hopes for enjoying the contents of the row of barrels fast disappearing.

"It's good to see you too, Lil," he said, his eyes sliding to the spot on the wooden boards where he had last seen her crumpled form.

Lil followed John's gaze and handed his coat to Tam, who was almost obscured beneath the pile.

"Yes, well, I don't think any of us will forget that day, especially not the families of those who were lost on the hunt." She looked down solemnly for a moment, but then her eyes swept around her guests once more and she gave a determined little nod. "Still, all the more important for those of us who survive to make the most of the life we've been given. Tirren's been keeping the fires going in your rooms, so they should be nice and cosy." John heard Rodney give a mumble of disbelief.

There had been some rearranging on the upper floor, so that John's former room only had two beds in and, consequently, seemed much bigger. Rodney let his pack fall on the floor with a pointed thud; he'd had to carry John's kit as well as his own, which John didn't think Rodney needed to make a fuss about because he hadn't packed much and the Jumper had brought them to the door anyway.

"They still haven't plugged the gap in the window frame," grumbled Rodney.

"Give it a rest, McKay," said John, sitting down on the bed nearest to the window. He'd tensed up against the cold when they'd stepped out of the Jumper and it had started his ribs aching again. "Why don't you plug it with something?"

"I will." Rodney turned around and scanned the room, looking for something to wedge in the frame. "No!" he said, suddenly, to John, making him jump guiltily.

"What?"

"How many times were you borderline or actually hypothermic last week?" Rodney demanded. "I'll take the bed nearest the window." He steered John to the other bed, nearer the door. "Anyway, it won't matter if I can render it draught-free, somehow."

John, giving up entirely on the idea of beer, drew out his painkillers from his pocket and dry-swallowed two of them.

"I don't know how you can do that!" said Rodney. "Why don't you go downstairs and sit in front of the parlour fire? And," continued Rodney, enjoying himself, "Tam can bring you a blanket and some warm milk. And maybe some tartan slippers and an old man cardigan!" He chortled, annoyingly, but John recognised the convoluted pathways of Rodney's concern; and it was funny. He sneered and snarled, dutifully feigning irritation, but went down to the parlour, nevertheless.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Teyla had rarely seen Elizabeth in so light-hearted a mood. She had given an "Oh!" of delight when she had entered the room they were to share, which was Teyla's former room, with the addition of an extra bed. Elizabeth had exclaimed over the little window seat (not commenting on the draught), and been delighted with the rose-patterned china on the wash-stand, not caring, or not realising, that this was it, in terms of washing facilities. It crossed Teyla's mind that Elizabeth might also be delighted with, or at least amused by the pottery helgs in bonnets on the parlour mantelpiece. With this in mind, she said, "Come, I will show you the parlour," and they went downstairs.

It was not, initially, the bonneted helgs that delighted both Teyla and Elizabeth, however, but the sight of John, entirely relaxed, sprawling in a many-cushioned chair, a large baby sitting on his lap, noisily blowing spit-bubbles, and a very small boy sitting at his feet, playing with his boot laces. A heavily pregnant woman sat opposite him, working on a sad-coloured piece of knitting. John looked up as they entered and smiled self-consciously. Teyla did not understand how or why he managed to look embarrassed to the point of guilt; if he were an Athosian man he would almost certainly be the father of a growing family by now. This thought gave Teyla a slight chill; perhaps it would be her lot, as well as his, to fight for the right of others to have a peaceful family life, but never experience one themselves. She shook off the feeling and introduced Elizabeth to Grella.

oOo

When they had entered the parlour, Elizabeth had had to exercise all of her considerable powers of diplomatic restraint in order not to smile and coo and indulge in sundry other sentimental sounds and exclamations wholly inappropriate to a woman of her position and standing. The scene was, however, and she would only use the word in the privacy of her own mind, adorable. John, looking comically flustered, had clearly been engaged in a mutually intelligible conversation with Ellet and, judging by the trail of drool that he was surreptitiously wiping from his chin, he had been a full and active participant. The baby suffered from no such embarrassed qualms and continued to burble noisily, while Teyla introduced Grella, who Elizabeth remembered speaking to over the comms.

"What beautiful children!" Elizabeth commented, sitting down next to Teyla. "And another due soon?"

"Oh, yes, I'm thinking probably tomorrow," said Grella, casually.

"Oh?"

"Well, it'll be a quiet day after the festival. That's usually the way it works, for me."

"Oh," said Elizabeth again, nonplussed. "What exactly does the festival involve?"

Grella picked up Tallen, who had been tugging at her skirt, and settled him comfortably on her lap where he sat, scrutinising Elizabeth, disconcertingly.

"There's no set pattern, really." Grella smiled. "You'll notice things are pretty relaxed here, generally. As long as the helgen are taken care of, we don't worry about the when or the how of things. Folks'll start arriving this afternoon and there'll be food and drink, music and dancing. The children, and some of the adults'll probably organise a snow battle. The main event's the helg racing, which happens when it's dark, because then it's more dangerous, which, apparently is a good thing, according to some. Then, things tail off when everyone's had enough, which can be when dawn rises in some years!"

"Cool," said John.

"That sounds like fun," said Elizabeth, brightly.

"I won't lie to you, sometimes it's mayhem," laughed Grella. "If it gets too much, just go to bed. Nobody'll mind."

Elizabeth smiled. It was nice to spend time somewhere so relaxed and accepting.

Lil entered, bearing a large tray of food. She set it down and arranged the bowls and plates on a table within everyone's reach. "There now," she said, with a satisfied air. "What shall I get you to drink? Tea?"

Tea was agreed upon and Elizabeth noted John's rueful grimace and concluded he'd taken the sensible option of painkillers over alcohol, for once. Ellet reached toward the table, babbling.

"Crunchy snegs," John announced, and took a handful of something curly and brown, which he proceeded to share with the baby.

"Crunchies and eggs," Teyla explained, seeing Elizabeth's puzzlement. "They are fried helg rinds and pickled eggs."

Elizabeth's nose wrinkled in distaste. "I think I'll pass," she said to Teyla and selected something which looked like a cracker spread with paté.

oOo

"Beckett!" Ronon growled, threateningly.

"I just don't want you to fall! Those stairs are very steep!"

Ronon regarded the narrow, precipitous flight. It had been tricky getting up them with his casted leg, but Ronon had an idea about getting down that might be fun.

"Look away," he said.

"What?"

"Trust me, you don't want to see this."

"But..."

A menacing rumble halted Carson and he resignedly turned to face the landing. Ronon leant forward, reaching down with both crutches. He let his weight carry him past the tipping point, planted the crutches firmly on a stair about halfway down and swung his body under, in a smooth glide, his uncasted foot landing softly at the bottom of the flight, the crutches swinging after him to come to rest at his side.

"You can look now."

"What? How did...? Oh, you're right, I don't want to know."

Carson, hearing Elizabeth's voice, headed into the parlour, but Ronon didn't follow. He made his way into the kitchen where Lil and Tirren could barely be seen through clouds of steam and flour.

"D'you want to sit down?" said Lil.

Ronon merely loomed. Lil looked up from her pastry and gave him a knowing smile.

"There's a bucket of scraps by the back door," she said. "Can you manage?"

"Yeah." Ronon picked up the bucket and hooked it awkwardly onto one of his crutch handles. He made his way across the snowy yard to the barn.

A small figure was sitting on an upturned bucket, bent over, sharpening a knife on a whetstone with great concentration. She stopped, tested the blade on a piece of straw and noticed Ronon. Maddy smiled.

"You're back."

"Yeah."

"You broke your leg."

"Yeah."

"You won't be able to race Franca tonight."

Ronon shrugged, wondering if Maddy would distract Carson for him. He'd be able to ride. He'd give it a good go, anyway. Maddy narrowed her eyes.

"On the hunt," she said levelly, "I rode at the back and then went home when I was told. Cos I'd've been stupid not to." She continued to glare, until he gave another shrug, this time of acquiescence.

"How're the traps?" Ronon asked, crutching over to Franca's stall.

"Not good," said Maddy, with a lowering frown. "Something's taking stuff. Maybe more'n one something."

"Grenza?" asked Ronon, tipping the scraps out of the bucket. Franca, who had grunted lustily at his approach, set to work with much champing and slurping.

"Dad says not, but I think there is. Snow covers the tracks, though."

Maddy pulled off her cap and put the knife back in the band. She held up the whetstone and looked questioningly but Ronon shook his head, so she dropped it back into her skirt pocket.

"Cold, ain't it?" Maddy said.

Ronon's lips twitched. "Palver?"

She grinned, picked up the scrap bucket and they went inside.

oOo

Rodney had wedged a sock into the window frame. He wasn't sure if it was his or John's, but either way, they'd both benefit. Searching through his pack for something to use, Rodney had stirred his and John's things into an interesting melange of mundane, scientific and soldierly kit. He'd found a block of C4, which had infiltrated his stash of power bars and wondered, firstly, why John had brought plastic explosive with him (_although, I suppose you never know, _Rodney admitted) and secondly, would it be a gross misuse of resources if he squashed it into the gap in the frame? _Yes, _he decided, _it would._

The sock jammed in place, Rodney decided his next priorities were food and furriness, but at the foot of the stairs he was presented with a dilemma. Lil, carrying a tastily laden tray and heading for the parlour, jerked her head over her shoulder at the other bar, saying, "Priss is in there." Seeing Rodney's hesitation, she added, indulgently, "I'll bring you a tray, go on!"

Rodney was soon installed on one of the fireside settles, Boudicca over his lap, extending either side to fill the bench. Lil had placed a tray of tempting treats within arm's reach and he was just biting into a thick, hot slice of very buttery toast, when there came the familiar rattle of the latch and Gard entered. He stamped snow off his boots in a manner sure to incur the wrath of his host and hostess and seeing Rodney, nodded.

"Heard you were back," he said.

Rodney gestured a greeting with his piece of toast and made a series of noises and facial contortions around his mouthful. This seemed to satisfy Gard, who stomped across the room and took up his usual station at the bar. Rodney worked his inquisitive way through the various food items provided, some identifiable, some not; he had had a long conversation with Lil about citrus and had come to the comfortable conclusion that this world was entirely citrus-free. Boudicca turned out to have a predilection for cheese and, having sniffed out the cheese pastries, glared at Rodney meaningfully until he surrendered the entire plate.

"They'll probably give you indigestion," he said, to which she replied with a scornful flick of her ears.

Ronon and Maddy came through from the kitchen and proceeded to drink hot ale and eat their way through a jar of pickled eggs. They shared their ale with Gard and seemed to be having a conversation about weaponry; knives were compared, Maddy sitting actually on the bar and occasionally extracting a knife from Ronon's hair with a shout of glee.

The bar filled up during the course of the afternoon, the locals greeting each other with rowdy anticipation of the coming revelry, such that, when yet another group entered, Boudicca took the opportunity to slip out of the front door. Rodney snatched up his winter gear and followed. Rowdiness was also in progress outside, children running here and there, helg-drawn vehicles arriving in a flurry of kicked up snow. Tam had erected a table, which was supporting a row of tapped barrels, and a kind of coconut shy was being set up, except the prizes were some kind of root vegetable rather than coconuts and Rodney strongly suspected that the missiles were round lumps of helg dung. _Waste not, want not, I suppose, _thought Rodney, knowing that Ronon wouldn't be deterred from competing in the slightest. John's face would take on a look of philosophical contemplation until he thought of a very bad joke on the subject; he would share it with Rodney and Rodney would sneer obligingly.

Large torches had been hammered into the hard ground, their poles about six feet tall, surmounted by latticed iron buckets filled with chunks of wood. Rodney thought they looked very dangerous and intended to steer well clear of them when they were lit.

He turned away from the churned-up mixture of slush and snow in front of the pub and followed Boudicca's bounding progress a little way into the forest. The snow had stopped falling and the sky, for the moment, was a clear blue, seen through the criss-crossing branches of bare winter trees. Rodney examined some twigs at eye-level, the filigree lines of snow balanced on their upper edges highlighting their tracery. Boudicca butted him hard with her head, and he pitched forward through the branches and landed, face-first in a deep drift. Rodney rolled over, spluttering and gasping and narrowly avoided Boudicca's large paws, which seemed set on plunging him back into the drift. He scrambled up and the priss bounced around him in a circle, sneezing snow out of her face and making little rushing approaches to bat him with her paws.

"Playtime, is it?" he asked, nervously, thinking that this might turn out to be a little more strenuous than offering up a tauntingly catnip-filled mouse-on-a-string for execution. Rodney wondered if he, in fact, was the mouse-on-a-string. He shuffled through the snow, experimentally, with a penguin-like waddle, feeling it breach the tops of his boots, and was immediately set-upon by Boudicca, who gave him a hearty shove with both front paws so that he ended up flat on his back, looking up through the branches.

"Squeak!" he said, accepting the role with resignation.

oOo

There was a snow battle in progress and Ronon was not letting his crutches stop him from leading his side to a decisive and savage victory. John, however, had decided to help some of the younger kids build a snowman, which had turned into a snow-giant when he and the children had become a bit over-enthusiastic in its construction. Then, upon the notorious Handa's insistence, it had been transformed into a snow-Wraith by the addition of many long twigs for its hair and some shorter fragments for its teeth. The children were very pleased with it; John thought it was creepy. Eventually he left them to play at being fed upon, which was more than a little disturbing, and returned to the warmth of the pub, remembering to use the boot-scraper to remove compacted snow before he went inside.

The sound of musical instruments and singing came from behind the left-hand door and John thought he heard Teyla's strong, clear voice in the mix. He opted for the quietness of the parlour and entered its warmth gladly, his extremities numb with cold. He had taken his arm out of its sling to help build the snowman and he could feel it burning around the stretched new scar tissue. His ribs were jolting him with stabbing pains and, allowing an arm to curl round them, he cursed vehemently into the empty room, coughing as the warm air entered his chilled airways. A head appeared around the edge of the nearer settle and John gave a guilty start.

"You really do need a keeper, don't you, Colonel?" said Carson, accusingly.

"C'mon Doc, I wasn't out long." John slid off his coat and, under Carson's watchful gaze, put his arm back in the sling that was dangling round his neck. He eased himself down next to the fire and tried not to wince. Or wheeze. He smiled winningly at Carson and, realising the doctor was holding an item in each hand, tried to head off any further rants.

"What'cha got there?"

Carson's face brightened.

"These! Aren't they delightful?" He held a pottery helg out for John's inspection. It wore an apron, a bonnet and an expression of unlikely coyness.

"Yeah... that's er... nice."

"And look at this one!" Carson placed an ornament in John's hand. It had a flower behind its ear and held a parasol; its expression was nauseatingly smug, as if the parasol-flower combo marked it as the self-acknowledged leader of helg fashionable society.

"They're just like the wee piggies my old Mam collects!" gushed Carson, standing up and admiring the collection on the mantelpiece.

John regarded the ornament in his hand with disfavour, hoping that Carson's pleasure really was simply due to the memories of his mother that the obnoxious figures evoked. He didn't want to find the infirmary decorated with the things; it was bad enough being stuck there normally without having to put up with their self-satisfied expressions of virtue. Carson took the ornament from him and set it back on the mantelpiece with exaggerated care and a fond look. His hand hovered and John, thinking that he might be called upon to admire each one in turn, decided he had had enough; he took his painkillers from his pocket, and, with an exaggerated wince, swallowed two of them and then settled back to enjoy Carson's return to twittering chastisement.

oOo

Elizabeth stood well back from the milling throng of competitors. It was fully dark and the torchlight flared out across the scene, glinting off the shining, excited eyes of children and adults alike, picking out highlights on the helgs' metal-studded harness and turning the snow to a rumpled orange blanket, pock-marked with purple-blue shadows.

Then the helgs were moving with more purpose, aligning themselves in one direction, and suddenly the churning, snorting mass jerked into sudden motion and they set off in a mad stampede into the forest. The sky was still clear and the moon had risen; Elizabeth watched the riders and their mounts fade out of the golden torchlight, their flickering forms becoming limned in silver. Then they turned a corner and were gone.

"That was... exhilarating!" she breathed.

"Madness!" snapped Rodney. "I'm going in." He turned and scuttled back into the pub, no doubt heading for more snacks and his comfortable friend.

"I'm glad I brought my full kit," said Carson, worriedly. "There'll be injuries before the race is over, that's for sure!"

Ronon rumbled enviously.

"Next year, Chewie," said John, consolingly.

"Were some of those riders children?" Elizabeth wondered.

"Maddy was riding," said Ronon. "And some of her friends. And her Dad."

Elizabeth was passed a cup of warm spiced ale and she watched Teyla, expertly throwing lumpy balls at hairy vegetables on sticks for a while, but then the crowd drifted back over to the race track where, bounded by ropes, it came out of the forest and looped back for another circuit. First Elizabeth could feel the frontrunners coming, through the trembling of the ground, then she could hear the thudding on the frozen earth and their rhythmic snorting, and then they emerged into the torchlight, bunched together in a mass of grunting, thrusting muscle, their riders crouched low, looking incidental to the whole process. They hurtled toward the spectators and then made a sharp turn back into the forest, skidding and jostling for position. Elizabeth glimpsed Maddy, in a blur, shoot past on the inside of the group, but the helg behind her slipped and thudded down into the churned-up snow, heaving and thrashing for purchase. The rider jumped clear, the helg, its tiny eyes red with reflected firelight surged to its feet and shot off squealing after the others, its rider just managing to vault astride in time. Another group passed at a marginally less breakneck pace, then a few stragglers, then the thundering receded. The spectators began murmuring excitedly to each other and the beer barrels were once more surrounded.

"How many laps will they do?" asked Elizabeth.

"Maddy said six," said Ronon, "but sometimes they just keep going til most people have fallen or dropped out." He crutched over to join the queue for beer.

"That's enough for me!" said Carson. "I'm going in. That tune sounds exactly like a Scottish reel! I wonder if anyone's dancing?" The distant thud of floorboards suggested they were.

"I will join you, Carson," said Teyla and he held out his arm and began explaining the intricacies of the reel and the comparative dignity of the strathspey, while they walked inside together.

Elizabeth looked at John, noting his slightly hunched posture.

"You staying to see Maddy win?" he asked.

"Will she?"

"Power to weight ratio says yes," he replied. "Not to mention determination."

"She's a force of nature, that girl!"

"They all are, a bit, though, aren't they?"

"They're good allies. What you see is what you get." Elizabeth looked around at the happy, good-natured crowd, hearing the beat of dancing feet and clapping hands. "And what you see is a close-knit community making the best of what they have."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Rodney was dozing in the parlour, Boudicca a heavy weight over his lap. He had heard the thundering pass of the helg race and the cheers of encouragement, and then the music had started up again. Someone fumbled with the latch and John came blundering in and sat down opposite Rodney. He closed his eyes and let his head fall against the back of the settle.

"I'm beat," he said, running one hand through his hair. He looked around. There were just a couple of groups in the room, murmuring quietly, some with sleeping children in their laps. "Enjoying the party atmosphere?" John asked.

"Yes, thank you!" Rodney replied, smugly. "I've had a very civilized evening!" He shuffled awkwardly on the bench. "Except now I need to pay a visit to the sub-zero facilities and I'm not looking forward to having icicles forming in strategic places."

"Better get it over with, Rodney! Or use the flowery pot!"

Rodney sneered in reply and, pushing Boudicca off his lap, pulled on his coat and stepped out into the kitchen garden. The vegetables remaining after Franca's raid stood out frost-rimed and pale in the moonlight. Rodney could see the tops of the trees outlined against the starry sky, but the light didn't penetrate beneath the eaves of the forest and he shuddered at the thought of what might be lurking. He hurried down the path. Somebody had left the candle burning in the outhouse but Rodney could only just about see what he was doing. This, for Rodney, was the major downside of staying at the Happy Helg; he wondered if, somehow, flushing toilets could be installed. At least it wasn't smelly at the moment, it being so cold, although tendrils of vapour rose from the hole in the wooden board, which was somewhat off-putting.

Rodney finished, opened the door and immediately felt the press of cold metal just behind his left temple.

"Don't turn round." The sinister voice was unfamiliar. Rodney stood motionless as someone fumbled for his sidearm. They threw it away and he heard it land in the vegetable patch.

"In a moment, you are going to turn to your right," the voice continued, calm and cold. "Then you are going to make your way to the forest. If you refuse, I will shoot. If you call out, I will shoot. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Rodney said. His mind spun; this must surely be the escaped Councillor Smeadon. And he had said he would shoot; yet would he? If he wanted a hostage, shooting Rodney would gain him nothing, and bring the rest of Rodney's team and all the locals running. He was also standing too close; Rodney had seen Sheppard disarming enemies under such circumstances.

"Move!"

Rodney found himself doing as he was told; turning to the right and making his way out of the kitchen garden and up the slope toward the forest. The pressure of the gun had disappeared and he hesitated.

"I'm close enough to finish you, Dr McKay. Keep going."

Rodney carried on, the moonlight just enough to allow him to keep his footing on the rough ground. He thought it would be pitch dark under the trees and maybe he'd even be able to use the darkness to escape. But, shafts of moonlight lit the forest floor and his captor urged him on, away from the safety of the Happy Helg and his friends and out into the bitter-dark winter night.

oOo

John had been going to go to bed. He was tired and sore and, as the helg race made another rumbling lap, he decided he'd pass up the chance to catch the final stage in favour of his bed and, hopefully, some sleep. But then Boudicca spread herself over his lap and her fur was so warm and soft that he sat and enjoyed running his fingers through it for a couple of minutes.

He felt the priss tense beneath his hand and then, in a quick scrabble of claws, she flung herself over to the garden door and scratched at it frantically. John automatically went to reach for his sidearm, cursed the restricting sling, and then wasted time getting his arm through the sleeve of his coat so that he could draw his weapon. As soon as he unlatched the door, Boudicca was through. John stepped out more warily into the night, moving swiftly to one side of the opening so that he wouldn't be silhouetted against the light. Boudicca was sniffing around the vegetable beds and the outhouse and John moved cautiously forward. The glint of moonlight on metal revealed Rodney's Beretta amongst the frozen leaves; John retrieved it, his heart sinking, knowing that this could only mean that Rodney was in big trouble.

Boudicca, having caught a scent trail, hared away up the slope toward the forest. John followed, knowing full well that he should gather reinforcements first, but not wanting to lose Boudicca. And, if he had guessed correctly, he only had one man to deal with anyway. The priss stopped at the edge of the forest and looked back. John ran up the slope to join her and they stepped beneath the trees together.

oOo

"Are we going to the Gate?" Rodney's hands were icy, even tucked into his sleeves and shoved into the opposite armpit. _Note to self, _he thought, with more than a little hysteria, _when being taken hostage in the winter, always bring gloves. _"Because this isn't the quickest way, you know."

"Shut up and keep walking."

"People will have noticed I'm gone. They'll be following; maybe they're at the Gate already!"

"I said shut up! And if they want you alive, they'll let me go through."

Rodney stumbled and fell forward on his hands and knees.

"Get up! Stop trying to slow me down!"

"I'm not!" protested Rodney, slowly rising to his feet, his teeth chattering, feeling the frozen wetness seep through his pants. "It's dark and I can't see!"

"Just get moving! That way!" Smeadon jerked his weapon toward the vague hint of a path through the trees. Rodney staggered forward. He wondered how Smeadon had been surviving in the woods since he'd been flushed out of his hideout. In his brief glimpse of the man, Rodney had got the impression of a bundle of ragged clothes and a gaunt, unshaven face. He looked desperate, and Rodney knew that desperate equalled dangerous.

They continued, their footfalls soft in the blanket of snow. To begin with, Rodney had been able to hear upraised voices and music from the festival, but the forest was now swathed in silence.

There was a sudden snap to his right, and a disturbed bird flapped wildly up through the trees. Rodney kept going, but his eyes darted here and there, the shadows and moonlight forming sinister shapes which seemed to move as he walked. Another snap came and Rodney's head spun toward it, so that he didn't see the snow-covered tree-roots before him; his foot caught, and he fell forward awkwardly, feeling his ankle twist. He cried out at the sudden, wrenching pain and struggled to free his foot from the roots.

"Get up!" Smeadon kicked at Rodney's leg in frustration.

"I can't! Help me!" demanded Rodney, his anger and pain temporarily over-riding his fear. Rodney felt his foot come loose as Smeadon knelt down and pulled at the roots. He rolled over and sat up carefully, feeling slightly sick at the throbbing waves coming from his ankle, and the thought that it might be broken.

"I've had enough of this! Get up on your feet and march!" ordered Smeadon harshly, punctuating his words with sharp jabs of his weapon to the back of Rodney's head.

"You've had enough?" Rodney burst out, incredulously. "My ankle's probably broken, I'm getting frostbite, I'm almost certainly hypothermic! And you say you've had enough? How could you possibly expect this stupid plan to work?"

Light glinted off Smeadon's teeth as his face contorted in a savage grimace. In his rage, he swiped the pistol hard against the side of his captive's head, but Rodney's cry of pain was drowned out by a louder, high-pitched, chittering call: a grenza.

oOo

John struggled to keep up with Boudicca, who leapt over the snow with her easy, loping gait. The tracks would have been clear, even without Boudicca to follow and John jogged along after her until his lungs began protesting against the bitterly cold night air and his ribs stabbed with every heaving breath. He stopped and leant against a tree, shivering with the chill of the freezing air on his sweat-damp forehead. Boudicca turned back and nudged him with her head.

"I know, Boudie," he wheezed, his shoulders drooping. "Just give me a second." Then his head came up suddenly and he froze, listening. Surely that was Rodney's voice, not far ahead? Yes, definitely Rodney, hitting that familiar note of strident outrage. Hopefully his ranting would disguise the sound of John's approach. He and Boudicca crept forward, naturally separating into a flanking pattern. Then, there came the sound that John had most feared: the chilling call of mortal dread and absolute horror. And it was between him and Rodney.

John ran, twisting and turning in and out of the trees, ducking beneath branches, leaping over roots, desperate to get to his friend, to defend him from the evil creature. Through the dim, blue-gray darkness, he saw a shape on the ground and another, standing, and then, as the moon came out from behind the ragged edge of a cloud, the nightmare form of a grenza was revealed, looming over both. It cried again, its head thrown back, its cruel triumph echoing through the silent forest, heralding the inevitability of death and decay.

John fired into its black, sinewy body, his weapon in one hand and Rodney's in the other, knowing that his shots would only distract, perhaps only buy some precious seconds. The grenza grasped one cowering figure in its clawed hands and raised it high above its head, tearing and rending with teeth and claws, the dreadful wet, cracking sounds of its devouring filling John's heart with sick horror. He stepped forward steadily, firing at the beast's head, wishing for a brighter light so that he could aim at its eyes and, with shocking relief, he heard Rodney calling out to him.

oOo

Rodney had watched with terror and disgust as the grenza tore at Smeadon's flesh, and he had felt hot blood splash across his face. He flailed his arms and one sound leg to get as far away as he could from the carnage. In his shock and fear, he hadn't heard the shots, but suddenly John was there, jabbing flares of light marking a weapon in each hand as he fired at the grenza's head.

The beast threw away the ragged remains of Councillor Smeadon and turned. It cocked its head and the moonlight fell on one dispassionate, shark-like eye. John fired again and the creature screamed but seemed undaunted. It took a step toward Rodney, its claws reaching for him, flickering, as if beckoning its prey to come and be killed. A leaping bomb of darkness detached from the shadows and hurled itself onto the grenza's back, clawing and spitting and snarling. The beast shook its head and roared its anger as one eye was clawed to blindness, but then a wicked hand swiped at its assailant and Boudicca was flung away.

Rodney saw John prepare to do something desperate, his body tense, as if timing a spring that would take him onto the creature's head to assault its vulnerable eyes.

Then came a great, roaring imperative: "Down!" Rodney stayed where he was on the ground, but saw John throw himself flat, and then the forest lit up with blinding light and thundered with a cacophonous explosion, which rang and rang until the light had diminished to blue and black night once more and the only sound was the buzzing residue in Rodney's ears.

"That's done for it," came a satisfied voice, out of the trees.

"Gard!" said Rodney. Gard stepped forward and surveyed the little that remained of his kill. He had a large tube balanced on one shoulder, which, Rodney guessed, was a kind of rocket launcher.

"Thanks," came John's breathless voice. "That was... good timing." Rodney heard suppressed winces and gasps as John pulled himself to his feet and then he was crouching down stiffly, looking into Rodney's face. "You alright, McKay?"

"Yes," said Rodney, weakly. "I think so. Well, my ankle... But what about Boudicca? Is she...?"

A disgruntled growl came from out of the ever-deepening darkness and the priss slowly limped toward Rodney and collapsed next to him. Rodney put his hand on her and felt wetness that he feared was blood. He looked at John, but could barely see his face, and then Rodney felt soft touches on his skin and realised it was snowing again.

"I can't get my ship in here," said Gard. "We need to walk out."

"I don't think I can," Rodney said. "And we need to bring Boudicca."

"Maybe Gard can carry her and you can lean on me," said John, wearily.

"No," said Gard.

"But you can't leave her!"

Gard crouched down next to Rodney. "I'm just saying I won't have to," he said, gently. "Look!"

Rodney turned his head, and through the trees he could see faint flickers of light and moving shapes, indistinct at first and blurred by flurries of snow. The lights came closer and then the scene was bathed in the friendly orange-yellow glow of torches and Rodney could hear people calling their enquiry and concern; people on foot and on helg-back, coming through the night and the snow-bound forest. He felt John sit down next to him and move in close for warmth. They waited, together, content to let their new friends and allies take charge.

oOo

The helg race had been over, as far as Ronon could tell, most of the competitors having trailed back, mud-spattered but exhilarated, over the course of the last few laps. Maddy, Fren and a couple of other riders had kept going past the six laps, but seemed to have agreed on a draw, when the sky flashed white and, a moment later, a crack, like a lightning strike split the air and the echoing rumble made the windows shake in their frames.

The resulting seemingly disorganised activity actually showed the practical teamwork of the locals at its best. A party set out immediately to investigate the explosion, and within the next five minutes the whereabouts of every man, woman and child had been established, with the exception of John, Rodney and Gard. Nobody had seen Boudicca either.

Ronon wanted to jump on Franca straight away and set off into the forest; it took a direct order from Elizabeth to prevent him and he was only really persuaded when Teyla, Carson and Elizabeth, as well as more of the locals, followed the trail of the initial party.

Ronon stood outside the Happy Helg, snowflakes settling on his head and shoulders, watching the road, his crutches shuffling in the churned-up mess of slushy mud. Lil stood next to him, her unaccustomed silence betraying her anxiety. Ronon crutched away from the door, hoping to see further into the distance. They'd taken the main Gate track and would have cut through the forest to reach the source of the explosion; they would return the same way.

"Can you see anything?"

"No." Ronon squinted into the swirling snow. "Yeah. Lights. They're coming."

He drew himself up and stood tall, despite his crutches, prepared to face what came with stoic solidity. Voices began to echo out of the night and the increasing snowfall and Ronon sagged in relief; the calls were cheerful and somebody was singing. The rescue party had turned back into a festival. Out of the night the people came, and amongst those on helg-back were Rodney, pale and bloodstained but upright and conscious, with Boudicca gripped tightly in his arms, and John, slumping wearily, but grinning down at Elizabeth who was walking next to him.

Rodney and John were helped off their mounts and into the pub; Ronon followed them into the parlour and soon the music and dancing could be heard starting up again in the other room, sounding all the more glad and lively for the brief interlude of drama.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

John sank gratefully onto the settle and felt his chilled body start to relax as Lil tucked blankets around him; remembering Rodney's words, he wondered if he'd end up with tartan slippers and a cosy drink of warm milk, after all. That would be just fine, as far as John was concerned and he didn't think Rodney would object either, watching him wincing as Carson removed the temporary bandage he'd put on his ankle for the journey and begin wrapping it properly.

Elizabeth sat down next to John with a relieved sigh and Ronon propped his crutches against the table and lowered himself onto a chair. He exchanged a look and a tiny nod with John, which, without words, conveyed support and solidarity and the many things which added up to their friendship. John remembered the men at the bar and wished he had a tankard of ale with which to gesture.

Teyla approached him with a towel. "Your hair is wet. Let me dry it, John."

"I can do that!" he said, grumpily.

She twitched the towel out of his reach and gave him one of those looks that meant he'd better just sit still and take it. She began rubbing his hair.

"You'd better do Rodney, too!"

"I shall!"

"Make his hair stuck up and go all..." He waggled his fingers.

"Fluffy?"

"Yeah."

Teyla stopped rubbing his hair and paused, the towel dangling forgotten from her hand. "I am glad that Councillor Smeadon was finished by a grenza," she said firmly. "It is fitting."

"Poetic justice," agreed Rodney, looking at his foot, which Carson had propped up on a cushioned chair. He wriggled his toes experimentally, looking around with a puzzled expression. "Where's Gard?"

"He still wants the bounty on Smeadon, doesn't he?" said John, shifting uncomfortably as his ribs and arm protested their over-use.

"Oh," said Rodney, with a grimace. "He's collecting up..."

"Evidence," finished John.

Teyla gave his hair a final rub and started on Rodney's and John, warming up nicely, let his eyelids droop.

oOo

Elizabeth watched as a broad grin spread over Carson's face. He'd been becoming steadily more Scottish since he'd accepted a well-deserved 'wee dram' from Lil. Arriving back at the Happy Helg, Carson had taken charge; he'd dealt with Rodney's ankle (sprained, not broken) and made sure it was elevated and iced while he cleaned the cut on Rodney's head; he'd checked John over, despite his drowsy protests, put his arm back in a sling, ("and what happened to the last one, I'd like to know?") and, cutting short John's usual dissembling, with obvious disbelief, had made him take some strong painkillers; he'd even attempted to tend Boudicca's injuries, but she merely hissed dismissively and continued her self-ministrative licking. Elizabeth had caught the priss glaring at her once or twice, but no friendly overtures had been made on either side.

The 'wee dram' had been poured from one of the dusty, top shelf bottles, and had Carson pursing his lips and scrunching up his eyes in what was, apparently, an expression of pleasure. One wee dram led to another, so that when Tam carried in a steaming platter of helg puddings, Elizabeth was surprised when her CMO leapt to his feet and launched into a recitation of Burns' 'Address to a haggis'. Encouraged by the rapt attention of the locals and his friends, he declaimed all eight verses in fine dramatic style, receiving roars of disgusted delight at the 'gushing entrails' and leaving no doubt of the warlike results of a haggis-based diet, by cleaving 'legs and arms and heads' with an imaginary blade.

Tam handed him a real blade which Carson plunged into one of the puddings. Elizabeth was relieved that although the filling did indeed gush forth, it looked considerably more edible than the word 'entrails' implied; she would get the recipe for the Atlantis chefs. Everyone was given a share and there was silence while they enjoyed the rich, savoury taste, apart from Carson's ringing tones coming from next door, where his recitation had been requested and, Elizabeth thought, encored.

She finished her helg pudding and, feeling eyes upon her, looked up to see Boudicca watching her. The priss had finished her bowlful and nudged it with one paw, still watching Elizabeth.

"Yes, it was good," Elizabeth said, thinking it best to speak to Boudicca as she might any member of her team. "Maybe there's more?"

The priss flicked her ears in reply. Elizabeth noticed Rodney watching. John, next to her on the settle, had slumped sideways and his eyes were closed. Teyla was sitting with Ellet on her knee, watching the baby eat pudding with her hands. Tallen was asleep on Grella's lap and Maddy sat under the table, for some reason known only to herself.

Elizabeth felt warm breath on her hand and looked down to see Boudicca sniffing her fingers. The priss looked up at her and then, very deliberately, put a front paw on each of Elizabeth's thighs, so that they were eye-to-eye. It wasn't very comfortable, but Elizabeth stayed still. Then Boudicca put her forehead to Elizabeth's, Athosian style, and she was suddenly lost in the golden wells of the alien eyes. She saw the forest and the animals, Boudicca and others like her; she saw groups of priss, always around a central figure, and she recognised leaders, like herself, with heavy responsibilities and difficult decisions to make. The images faded, the weight disappeared from her thighs. Boudicca went back to her contemplation of the fire and her empty bowl.

"Well?" Rodney looked at her quizzically, his cheeks pink from warmth and food.

Elizabeth frowned. "I think..." she mused. "I think I've been acknowledged as a leader. I'm not sure how she sees my rank relative to hers, though."

"Oh, almost certainly below!" said Rodney. "Just accept it. And anyway, she'd be far easier to satisfy than the IOA!"

Elizabeth smiled her agreement.

oOo

John woke with a start and, he suspected, a snort, judging by the amused expressions coming his way.

"Time you were awa' to your bed, Colonel!" said Carson, still very Scottish.

"Yeah, I guess." John straightened up, feeling like a creaky old piece of furniture and wishing for an Asgard transporter beam to take him directly to blanketed comfort. "Although," he said, taking the mug of something milky-looking and sweet-smelling that had appeared in front of him, "There's something I keep meaning to ask."

"What's that, John?" Elizabeth said, taking a sip from her own mug.

"The grenza," John said, noticing Rodney shudder and shooting him an apologetic look. "Where'd they come from? What'd'you find out, Carson?"

Before Carson could answer, a voice came from beneath the table. "The witch made them! Everyone knows that!"

"It's just a children's tale," said Fren, sitting with his arm round Grella's waist and Tallen, still asleep, over his shoulder. "We don't really know."

Maddy's head popped up and she squirmed her way out from between Carson's and Rodney's legs and forced herself into a space between them. Yes, we do!" she said, indignantly. "There once was an old witch who lived in the far away mountains..."

"Mads, it's just a story..." Fren interrupted.

"Who saw," Maddy continued, glaring repressively at her father, "That the people were afraid of the Wraith."

John regarded Maddy more intently and knew his friends' interest had also sharpened.

"Anyway," Maddy carried on, "it goes on for ages, but... she makes the grenza to protect the people only it all goes wrong, and the grenza kill them instead, and there's a soppy bit where a girl and boy are in love and the girl gets eaten and so on... I don't think much of that bit."

John's eyes met Rodney's, wondering, and then everyone turned to Carson.

"Well," he said, scratching his head tiredly, "there may be a certain element of truth to the tale."

"You've got to be kidding!" Rodney burst out. "A witch?"

Carson shook his head. "Och, no, not a witch. An Ancient."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "What, so you found an Ancients' 'Monsters R Us' label on the DNA?"

Carson shrugged, then took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. "What can I say, Rodney? The Ancient equipment revealed that the DNA had been manipulated, and there were certain artificial markers that had obviously been deliberately placed."

"You really mean it, don't you? said Rodney, his eyes round. "Designer monsters, a gory death for every occasion. I'm going to bed."

"I think we should all go to bed," said Elizabeth.

"I agree," said Grella, heaving herself to her feet and patting her stomach. "This little one's not going to keep for much longer."

Tam brought their helg-drawn sleigh round and the family made their haphazard way outside, saying goodbye to Rodney first, as Carson insisted he keep his weight off his ankle. John wondered how Rodney was going to get upstairs.

The whirling flurries had stopped and the sky was clear once more, shining with scattered stars, which mirrored the jewelled points of frost on the peaks of the undulating snow. Fren shook hands with everyone and then climbed up onto the high seat, taking Tallen and Ellet as casually as if they were parcels, but placing them gently enough on blankets in the bed of the vehicle.

Grella embraced everyone, even Ronon, who looked embarrassed. She gave John a careful hug and whispered in his ear, "If your soldiering ever gets too much, we'd be glad to have you here." John laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling himself blushing with equal pleasure and awkwardness, tinged with the bittersweet knowledge that life in this place would be good, but would probably never be his.

Maddy shook hands with Ronon, hugged him round his waist and then released him, to give him a stern look. "No riding til you're healed," she said.

He replied with a smile and a casual salute and Maddy climbed up and began pestering her father for control of the reins. They drove away amid the hiss of the runners and rolling plumes of snorting helg-breath.

Ronon and Carson turned and went in, and John heard Ronon begin to mutter about "stupid crutches," and Carson respond with, "Och awa and dinna talk mince, ya great numpty!"

Elizabeth winced. "He'll have a sore head in the morning!"

"What is a numpty?" asked Teyla.

John shrugged. "Don't think the Gate's set up to translate drunk Carson."

"I think we can infer that it's not complementary," murmured Elizabeth.

John took a last look up at the stars as they turned to go in, and the easy back-and-forth of gentle humour continued, as they followed the path of welcoming candlelight and firelight to the open door beneath the sign of the Happy Helg.


End file.
